


Rebelling Against the Throne Means Being Willing to Do Whatever It Takes

by AntagonizedPenguin



Series: How Best to Use a Sword [16]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Because Dragons Don't Give a Shit About Your Human Conceptions of Coersion, Cum Marking, Dragon Incest, Dragons, Dragons with big dicks, Dubious Consent, It's a Harem-Like situation, Lots of Politics also, Lots of Sex, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Power Imbalance, Probably No Human Incest Though, Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2019-12-07 06:31:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18231197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntagonizedPenguin/pseuds/AntagonizedPenguin
Summary: Nestled in a range of welcoming volcanic mountains, Ech'kent is an idyllic, pastoral land of peaceful people ruled under the iron fist of an evil Sorcerer King who destroys rebellions against him by wiping towns off the map.After their hometown is destroyed, Cyrus, Sawyer, Sean and Gino want revenge, and they want their rebellion to succeed, to remove King Sam from the throne that his father stole, to return Ech'kent to native rulership for the first time in centuries. The question is how to make that happen when they're just four people against one of the most powerful and evil forces in the world.Fortunately for them, humans aren't the only people living in the plateau. Fortunately for them, help is available...for a price.





	1. Rebelling Against the Throne Means Being Willing to Do Whatever it Takes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really excited for this story, which should shed some fun light on what I think is one of the most curious places in the story--Ech'kent or the Fury Plateau, as it's known by its colonizers. As the tags have made obvious, there's going to be a lot of sex in this, and a lot of it is dubious consent-themed because it takes place in the context of a fairly unequal power dynamic, but I'm not tagging it as nonconsensual because it's not. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy--thanks for reading!

The town wasn’t smoking much. Towns normally smoked, as if the efforts of the humans who lived in them must produce visible effect to be counted. 

It was fire, he thought. Their obsession with artificial fire, born out of a natural deficiency that forced them to create it from metal and wood rather than just breathing it into life. It must have been because of that deficiency that they felt the need to make fire all the time, as if to prove to themselves and the rest of the world, repeatedly, that they could. 

But this town only had a few fires burning in its outskirts, and that occasioned a second look. So he banked left, circled around, and flew over it again. 

His wings worked to keep him aloft, but he moved a little lower. There was no movement in the town. Not just smoke and fire, but there were no humans scurrying around with their carts and bundles and whatever else it was that humans did. That was very unusual, or at least he assumed it was. When did humans ever stop scurrying?

He wasn’t supposed to, but he was curious. Something was off about this, and he wanted to know what it was. His instincts were telling him that the humans were all dead, which meant they wouldn’t see him. 

What, he thought idly as he slid downward, did it matter if the humans saw him anyway? It hadn’t been in his lifetime, but they’d once worshipped his people as gods, until they’d found other ones easier to worship, decided that their old gods were beasts to be feared and killed instead of feared and revered. Them seeing him wouldn’t hurt him—and if they tried to make it hurt him, the world would be rid of a few humans of the stupider stock. No harm done. 

Assuming a more compact form as he neared the ground, he landed on two legs, turning his head as he did. His approach had raised no cry, no clamour. Because there was nobody here to raise one.

The blood was proof enough of that. 

The town was built with wood, buildings squat and broad, and many of them stained with blood. It stained the ground in a few places too. Some of the buildings had been taken down, but only partially. Not collapsed, but parts of them deliberately removed.

He’d landed in a large open space in the centre of the town, in front of a wide stone bowl filled with dribbling water. Off to the left there was a tall pole with a piece of cloth hanging limply from it, and in front of that was a wooden bar suspended on two arches, blood stained deep into the ground underneath it. 

There were no bodies anywhere. He lifted his head, looking out at the meagre smoke that was rising from the northern edge of the town. Someone was still alive, making fake fire with metal and wood. 

Choosing to walk on his two little legs because the distance made it silly to fly, he headed north. He wasn’t supposed to, but who was going to know? And he was curious. 

The road he walked was wide enough to stretch his wings out to their full length as he went, though of course he didn’t. Balance was tricky in this shape, something they learned as yearlings, falling over in stupidly shaped bodies that didn’t have enough legs to keep themselves upright. 

Fifteen paces up the road, he heard sounds. Footfalls, someone approaching. Human voices. 

“Bothering him is a really bad idea,” one hissed. 

“He can _help_ us,” said another, higher in pitch. 

“You don’t know that, Gino.” 

“Of course I do, everyone knows that. Tell him, Sawyer.” 

“There are stories,” a third voice said, perhaps hesitant. “About…” 

They came into view, four immature humans, three of them normal looking and one with lighter skin, all four of them freezing when they saw him. “About dragons,” one of them said quietly, eyes on him. 

He smiled. “Don’t stop on my account,” he said to the humans. “I’d like to hear them.” 

None of them said anything for a moment, until the runt of their group stepped forward. “You’re really a dragon!”

“Last time I checked. And you’re really humans. What happened here? Where are your kin?” 

The runt was pulled back by the one who’d been speaking a moment ago. “They’re gone. Dead.” 

“Clearly.” Not impressed, he crossed his arms. He had to admit, he liked having arms. “What killed them? Did you all start a war?”

“We didn’t start it,” the pale one said, eyes fierce. He’d been the most visibly frightened of the four at first, but now he stood firm, rolling an artificial claw in his hand like he might use it. He was the largest of them if only be a hair. “The Sorcerer King did. He came and murdered everyone for daring to dissent.” 

“One human did all this?” A sorcerer, practitioner of magic. It made sense. 

“He has an army,” the light one said. “We were resisting him. We were…” 

The first speaker, near as tall as he, put a hand on him, silencing him. “He doesn’t care about that, Cyrus. You only need to answer the question he asked.”

“And here I thought respect for my people had faded among you,” he said, tilting his head a little to peer at them. “I guess you didn’t all forget us.” 

“Just because they built churches doesn’t mean we didn’t keep telling stories,” the human said to him. “Please excuse my friend’s rudeness—he’s not from here. He doesn’t know.” 

Now that was very interesting. “But the rest of you do.”

The other three nodded, properly deferential. 

Very interesting. 

“Tell me what you’re called.” 

“My name is Sawyer,” said the first speaker. “My friend is Cyrus. This is my brother Sean, and our friend Gino.” He pointed at the two others in sequence, ending with the runt. No, not a runt. Just younger—both Sean and Gino were younger by a short distance, that was all. “What may we call you?”

“I am called Kcatth’ssiuzt-nak’ahszrt’chntzch,” he told them, his tongue and throat rolling over a number of sounds he knew humans couldn’t make. “You may call me whatever name you feel closest approximates it.” 

“Cassius,” Cyrus decided. 

“Very well.” Cassius nodded. It was close enough. 

“Um…” That was Gino, approaching hesitantly. “Can I ask…why are you here? Are you here to help us?” 

“I was curious,” Cassius said, looking around. “I saw the empty town and wondered what had happened.” He was still curious. He was curious about the fight, and about this Sorcerer King. He was curious, and had been curious for a long while, about the human affairs in this area. But he wasn’t supposed to bother them. They’d stopped worshipping dragons long before Cassius had been hatched. He’d never spoken to a human before. Nobody he knew had, or would admit that they had. 

“Will you help us?” Sean asked. It seemed like the younger of the four were also the braver. Or perhaps the stupider. “We need help.” 

Help with what, Cassius wondered. “That depends. What will you do for me?”

“We’ll do…”

“Whatever you want,” Sawyer said, drawing in a trembling breath. “We’ll do whatever you want.” He got down on his knees. “Please help us.” 

His brother—the human word meaning they were siremates, Cassius was fairly sure—and Gino did the same, leaving only Cyrus standing. “Guys, are you sure…”

“Yes,” Sawyer snapped, tugging Cyrus’s arm. “He’ll help us.” 

“He didn’t say he would…” 

“That’s because we haven’t offered him anything. Kneel, Cy, please.” 

After a moment’s hesitation, Cyrus knelt, looking at Cassius. 

Now Cassius approached them. “Your friends are smart. You should listen to them,” he said. “I don’t have any reason to give you a gift.” 

They stayed on their knees, looking up at him, as Cassius reached them, considering. The power they were giving him, acknowledging him as their superior, was slightly intoxicating. 

Cassius had always thought that he wouldn’t mind being worshipped. 

So he grabbed his cock, hanging between his legs. “Something I like about this shape,” he said, giving it a squeeze, “is how accessible this is. Makes it easier to make use of. Make use of it for me.” 

“Which of…”

“All four of you,” Cassius said to Sean. “There’s enough to go around.” 

The humans looked at one another, then at him, and then Gino reached out and put a hand on him. Cassius let his cock go, and Sean followed Gino, and then the other two did as well. As he hardened, Cyrus licked him around the head, and Sawyer followed his lead. 

Cassius stood and watched, tail tense, as the four boys stroked and licked his cock together. It was captivating, and the thrill of it made him want to shudder. It wasn’t that they were particularly good at it—they were fine, but not the best he’d had—but it was clear that the humans had meant it when they’d said they’d do whatever he wanted. 

Sawyer and Cyrus took turns putting his head in their mouths and sucking, and the two younger humans were licking his shaft up and down as they squeezed and stroked him. Eventually Gino moved down and started sucking on Cassius’s testicles, one and then the other, alternating, letting Sean have the shaft. 

When Cassius was ready, he pulled back to shoot, making sure at least one spurt of cum hit each of the humans, marking them as his as he let out a low growl. Then he stood back, looking down at them. “Very well,” he said, liking the looks of them with his seed on their faces. “I want to penetrate one of you. I’ll hear your request while I do.” 

“P-penetrate?” Cyrus asked, stuttering a little. They were all four of them looking at Cassius's cock like they were just now seeing it. 

“Yes.” Cassius was itching for more after that warm-up. “I’ll allow you four to decide. You’re the leader, yes? You can explain the nature of your conflict with this sorcerer and what you want from me while I do.” 

“I’m not…” Cyrus took a breath, shook his head. “I’m not the leader. I’m not from here, I’m just…here. I don’t speak for the people of Ech’kent.” 

The other three were looking at him strangely. “You speak a lot for someone who doesn’t speak,” Cassius said, considering. “Very well. I’ll penetrate you, in that case, since you won’t be speaking.”

“Okay…” Cyrus said, looking at the others. He looked worried. “You tell him, Sawyer.” And he started to remove his outer covering, which Cassius only belatedly realized was also artificial. Humans did so love their artificial things. Without scales, he figured, they needed something to protect their hides. 

His coverings included several harnesses that held additional artificial claws, because humans had to make those too, born without anything to defend themselves Their teeth weren’t even pointed. But once those were removed as well, Cyrus looked up at Cassius. “I’m ready.” 

Cassius nodded, sat down, and pulled Cyrus over. “You’re not,” he said. “You’ll need some preparation so I don’t seriously hurt you.”

“I’m surprised that matters to you.” 

“If I wanted to maim you I’d have done it already. You two,” he said to the two younger humans. “You can help if this one will be doing all the talking. Come.” Gino and Sean came over to him, sitting beside him nervously. Sawyer watched them all as if rethinking this. Cassius took his cock in hand and pointed it at Sean. “Wet this as much as you can,” he said to him. “And you’ll help me wet him,” he added to Gino. To Sawyer, he said, “Talk, I’m listening.” 

“Uh, yeah,” Sawyer said, eyes glued to them as he watched Sean start to suck on Cassius, and as Cassius instructed Gino in inserting fingers inside Cyrus, who was quiet. “I don’t know how much of this you already know,” he said. “About ten years ago this sorcerer came from far away and conquered Ech’kent, made us all call him king. House Arkhewer submitted to him and everyone just sort of let him be in command. Everyone who resisted was killed and tortured and…” he shrugged. “We were all kids when that happened, so whatever.”

Cyrus was wriggling in discomfort in Cassius’s lap as Gino inserted a third finger inside him. Cassius wasn’t interested in going slowly. Sean had stopped sucking and was now licking him up and down. “And?”

Sawyer shook his head, a snap that took his attention off the other humans. “Right. So, House Arkhewer was always kind of secretly resisting the Sorcerer King, so he destroyed them a few years ago. Turned out their son survived though, and he’s a captive of the king now. Or we thought he was a captive. The old king died and his son’s the king now and he and Lord Henry came to Endlyn a few weeks ago, because, well…we’d been planning a rebellion. We have been for a while, to put the plateau back in the hands of the people who live here.” 

“It sounds like these sorcerers live here too,” Cassius said, guiding Gino in putting his fourth finger inside. Cyrus was panting, and Gino looked more and more excited as he realized what Cassius wanted him to do.

“They…” Sawyer’s face flashed with anger. “They’re not from here.” 

“They conquered the territory and are strong enough to hold it.” As Cassius spoke, he held Gino’s wrist as he pushed his thumb into the whimpering Cyrus, and in his other hand, pushed Sean down to engulf part of his cock. “I don’t see the problem.”

Sawyer glared at him for a moment, before taking a breath and continuing. “Anyway. They came here. And Lord Henry was going to take hostages and negotiate and everything. I…they gathered us up, everyone who wasn’t an adult.” Gino’s entire fist was inside Cyrus now, which Gino was clearly pleased with. “They were going to take us hostage, but…something happened. Lord Henry killed Jean, the chief’s son. And…and then they killed everyone. They slaughtered the whole village.” 

Cassius nodded. “You resisted them, you failed. Sounds about right. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is my family’s dead!” 

Cassius looked up at Sawyer, who was standing there with hands balled into fists. “So it’s revenge you want, then?”

“Yes,” Sawyer admitted. “And I want the rebellion to succeed. I want the king and Lord Henry dead. That’s what we all want.” 

“I see. That’s enough,” he said to Sean, pulling him off. He also gently pulled a disappointed Gino back, his hand popping out of Cyrus with a pop and a moan. Cassius examined the stretched hole for a moment before turning Cyrus and lining the hole up with his cock, then pushing forward. As he entered Cyrus, he asked, “So what is it that you want from me? Help killing these two?”

“Yes,” Sawyer said, eyes on Cyrus. “And all their followers. We want to put Ech’kent in the hands of people who can be trusted to run it properly.” 

“And that’s…hng, you?” Cassius guessed, and Cyrus let out a quiet moan. He kept going. 

“N-no, it’s…we’ll figure that out later. We just need…someone to fight for us, someone to protect us. Someone to help us rally the people of the plateau against the king. You can do that. People will listen to a dragon.” 

“God…” Cyrus whispered. 

Cassius didn’t answer either of them, pulling out a little and then going back in deeper with force, then doing it again, getting the rest of the way inside Cyrus like that, building up speed. He’d always preferred fucking in this form, it was so much more fun than in his larger body. Cyrus clenched around him, nice and warm and tight, and Cassius gripped his hips, using that to gain extra leverage for more speed. 

“Well?” Sawyer asked. 

“Well what?” Cassius growled. He’d rather not be interrupted. 

“Are you going to help us?”

Oh, that. “I’m going to fuck your friend. I’ll talk to you after.” 

The other humans mercifully fell silence, leaving Cassius to his pleasure. He didn’t fuck Cyrus as hard as he would have another dragon—he wasn’t looking to kill the human—but he went as hard as he figured Cyrus could take. And Cyrus, to his credit, didn’t complain. He moaned now and then in what might have been pain, but he took what Cassius gave him without whinging or asking him to stop or slow down. After a little while, he went tense and Cassius thought he was about to ask to stop, but the cry was one of pleasure, and a glance revealed that he’d cum himself, shooting onto the ground. 

By the time Cassius came he was well satisfied with Cyrus, and he held him tight and shot inside him hard, leaning down to bite Cyrus’s shoulder as he did. 

He pulled out, happy, and lay back beside Cyrus, who collapsed onto his belly. Cassius wrapped his tail around the human’s middle, looking up at the sky. 

After a minute, he heard, “So…”

“Clean me off,” he told Sawyer, not looking at him. 

Sawyer didn’t need to be told twice—they were obedient, these humans—getting down and licking the cum off Cassius’s cock. Cassius used the time to think. He wasn’t supposed to interfere with human affairs. He wasn’t supposed to talk to humans or let them see him, even. 

Too late for that, though, he thought, enjoying Cyrus’s breathing beside him. He’d done all that. And he’d marked them. They were his now, no matter what anyone said. Some of the smoke from before floated in front of his vision. “The fires outside of town. You were burning your dead.” 

“Someone had to,” Cyrus mumbled, bleary. “It’s only right.” 

“You’re supposed to burn the dead,” Sean said. “So they don’t feel the pain in their bodies in the afterlife.” 

Cassius nodded, not caring. It was a nice enough custom, he supposed. “Just the four of you, burning a whole town.” 

“We’re done,” Gino told him. “We were just burning the last of them today. We’ve been doing it for weeks.” 

That was dedication, just the four of them. Cassius couldn’t think of a dragon, himself included, who’d do that. “I’ll help you,” he said, as Sawyer finished cleaning him. “I’ll help you fight your conquerors, if that’s what you want.” 

“Really?” Sean asked, leaning into Cassius’s vision, hand near his wing. “For real?”

“Yes,” Cassius said, sitting up. He looked at Sawyer, who looked about to cry. “Not for free. I’ll take you all to my cave. You can’t live in a dead town. I’ll protect you and feed you. And all four of you will be available to me,” he said, looking down at Cyrus and his stretched hole, “whenever I like. Which you can expect will be often.” He was still hard, and would want another one of them to offer themselves shortly. 

“But you’ll help us free Ech’kent?” Sawyer asked, looking him in the eye.

“I will.” 

“Deal.” 

“Deal,” Sean echoed. 

“Deal,” said Gino, without hesitation. 

Pushing himself to his knees, Cyrus rubbed his face of some dirt. He was covered in head to feet in sweat. He looked at Cassius, something different in his eyes than the others. Something calculating, careful. “Deal,” he said. 

Cassius smiled, stood up and stretched out his wings. “In that case, let’s go somewhere where there’s room enough for me to transform, and I’ll take you all to the cave. I’ll take you all home. There’s plenty of light left in the day.” 

He walked off, back towards the large clearing he’d landed in before. He didn’t need to look back to know they were following him.


	2. Miracles and Rebels Come in All Shapes and Sizes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something fun I'm planning for this story is that every chapter is going to have a different POV character. So here's Gino.

Cassius’s cock tasted kind of like salt. Gino hadn’t known that cocks came in flavours, but it seemed like they did and Cassius’s tasted like salt. It made him wonder, as he sucked on it, as much of it in his mouth as he could fit, whether everyone had their own flavour or if it was because he was a dragon and all dragons tasted like salt. 

He’d only sucked one other cock before meeting Cassius, which wasn’t enough of a sample size. Really, the solution here was going to be to suck a bunch more and find out for sure. Which had never really been Gino’s life ambition, but it didn’t really matter what his life’s ambition had been since the Sorcerer King had come to his town and killed his family and most of his friends just because they’d wanted to do something about how shitty and evil he was. If it meant getting revenge for that, Gino would suck all the cock in the world. 

It did help that he kind of liked it. He hadn’t been sold when he’d first done it a few months ago, but he’d grown to enjoy it a lot more lately. Just in time to start doing it a lot. 

As much as he was enjoying himself, though, Gino tried to pay attention to what was happening in places that weren’t his mouth. The others were talking about stuff that mattered, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t get left out. 

“The castle’s an old fort or something,” Sawyer was saying. “It’s been there forever. Solomon didn’t build it.” 

“He refurbished it,” Cyrus agreed. “My understanding is that it was in a state of disrepair when he got here—and abandoned. The Arkhewers lived in Jdrinma-Hash.” 

Cyrus sometimes knew more about the history of Ech’kent than they did. None of them really knew why he was so interested, but he’d shown up about a year ago and helped their parents organize the rebellion. He didn’t seem to have any reason for wanting to do it aside from because the king was evil, which Gino thought was a good enough reason. He sucked harder, and Cassius pushed him down a little farther in response. 

“Has this castle any other fortifications aside from walls of stone?” Cassius asked in his rumble. It wasn’t obvious from his tone that he was getting a blowjob, which vaguely irritated Gino. “Anything at all stopping me from simply going there and tearing it to pieces?”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever been close enough to it to find out,” Sawyer said with a sigh. 

“There’s the Sorcerer King himself, of course,” Cyrus said. “But you’d be immune to his magic.” 

“I see,” Cassius said, contemplative as he stroked Gino’s hair. His hands were warm. 

“So are you going to just fly there and blow him up?” Sean asked. Gino smiled. That was his suggestion too. They had a dragon, why not use it?

“No.” Cassius moved his hips up a little, gagging Gino, who tried to ignore that. 

“Why not?” Sean asked, sounding annoyed. He’d be crossing his arms. 

“Sean,” Sawyer warned. 

Sean fell quiet, sulking. Gino understood—he didn’t get why Cassius wouldn’t just fly over and kill the Sorcerer King either, and if his mouth hadn’t been full of cock he’d have said so himself. But he also understood that they had to be deferential to him because he was a dragon. Whether or not he was a god, he was very powerful and to be respected. 

“It’s a fair question,” Cyrus pressed.

“Cy.” 

Cassius pushed Gino’s head farther down, nearly choking him. Gino did his level best not to die as he sucked, and was rewarded with more salt as Cassius came, filling up his mouth and forcing him to swallow. Gino did what he could, though a lot dribbled down his chin. That was fine. It hadn’t taken long to figure out that Cassius liked it when they had his cum on them. 

Gino wondered if it was a dragon thing or if he was just a pervert. 

Either way, he swallowed what he could and waited for Cassius’s hand to go away—if it did. Yesterday he’d kept Sawyer on his cock for an hour before bed. But he did remove it, and Gino pulled up, wiping his mouth instinctually before remembering he probably ought not to do that. Cassius didn’t seem mad, though. He just leaned back, wings resting on the ground. They were red, and his tail too, red mixed with grey. He didn’t thank Gino or anything, which after four days didn’t surprise, and Gino got up and went to go sit with the others, trying not to wince at how sore he was. 

It was less bad than it had been the first day, but it still kind of hurt. The amount that it had hurt had made Gino slightly ashamed of how much fun he’d had preparing the other three for Cassius to fuck them. He’d really enjoyed sticking his whole hand up inside them like that. And then Sean had done it to him and, well. It had been fun, but maybe he’d been a little eager with them. 

Anyway, he was sore, but tried not to show it as he went to sit between Sawyer and Sean, sitting identically, crosslegged, though Sean leaned back on his hands as Gino joined them. “You’re going to spoil your supper,” he said with a smile. 

Gino punched him. In a friendly way. “Just a little salt to season it with. I’ll give you some too if you want.” 

Even though it was selfish and kind of horrible, Gino was glad that Sean had survived the slaughter. Sean was his best friend, and he wasn’t sure how he’d have handled any of this if he’d lost his family and Sean and Sawyer at the same time. 

“Pass. Not all of us like sucking dick as much as you do,” Sean said, pointing out Gino’s boner. 

Which was easy, since they were all butt naked at Cassius’s order. It had been the first thing he’d made them do once they’d gotten back here. He’d said that they had no reason to cover themselves while they were here since it was plenty warm. He wasn’t wrong, though Gino wouldn’t have minded some boots. He knew Sawyer would have liked his pants, and probably Cyrus too, he’d rather have boots to walk around the mountains in. Mountain goats and lions and dragons and whatever else lived up here could look all they wanted at Gino’s dick for all he cared. His friends could look at it all they wanted. He could see theirs too, it was hardly a big deal. 

Gino shrugged, smiling at Sawyer quickly. “You’ll grow to love it with practice. You liked my hand after a while.” 

Sean snorted, making a rude gesture in Gino’s direction. 

“I won’t be attacking the castle for you because it’s not my job to fight your battles for you,” Cassius said, in answer to the question from before he’d cum. He always stopped talking to them when he was about to shoot; it was clear he thought that was more important. “If you can’t defeat this invader on your own, you don’t deserve to rule over yourselves.” 

“That’s stupid,” Cyrus said, bold. “He’s not from the plateau. There’s nothing wrong with needing help from others to get rid of him.” 

“They have you, don’t they?”

Cyrus blushed, his light skin going all red. “That’s not the same. I’m not…”

“Useful?” Cassius asked.

Cyrus glared at him. “Nobody would complain if you destroyed the castle. It would be an important symbol for the people in Ech’kent. Humans communicate in symbols, so…”

“I don’t care about symbols for humans,” Cassius told him. They spent a lot of time arguing. Cyrus didn’t seem to understand that he needed to be quiet and listen sometimes. He liked to talk. Apparently it ran in his family. As they argued, Gino inched away from Sean. Not because he wanted to be away from Sean, but just to be a little closer to Sawyer. 

“Well, you are one, so you probably should,” Cyrus said, holding his ground gamely. 

“And yet,” Cassius said, flicking his tail. “I do not. I am protecting you and will transport you to other settlements as you seek human allies.” 

“We’re sure the other towns are okay?” Sawyer asked, leaning back a little to disguise the fact that he’d moved closer to Gino too. Gino hid a smile, even though it was an important and serious question. They’d had no way of knowing if what the king had done to Endlyn had been done everywhere else too. 

“I flew around the plateau, the other towns seemed fine to me,” Cassius said. “Seems it was only yours that your enemy targeted.” 

“That’s not good,” Cyrus muttered. 

“Not good?” Sean asked, scowling at him. “Why wouldn’t it be good that they didn’t kill everyone else too?”

“Because it means that they were using Endlyn as an example,” Cyrus explained. Something about him that Gino liked was that he never talked to either him or Sean like they were stupid just because they were a little younger. “To make the rest of Ech’kent behave.” 

“That’s not going to work,” Sawyer scoffed. “It’ll just piss everyone off, make it easier to raise an army against them.” 

“Or,” Cyrus said, in his disagreeing tone that indicated he was right and everyone else was wrong, which was remarkably similar to his regular voice, “it’ll scare everyone into thinking they shouldn’t oppose him. They won’t want to risk their own towns getting wiped out too, right?” 

“Only if they’re cowards,” Sean insisted fiercely. Gino smiled at him as his hip touched Sawyer’s. 

Cyrus was shaking his head, though. “Would you keep fighting if you knew it meant that the Sorcerer King would come back and kill Sawyer and Gino?”

Sean went quiet at that. “I…”

“Humans are cowards,” Cassius declared. “Everyone knows that. You must plan with the assumption that they are.” 

Even Cyrus didn’t have an answer then. “I don’t think that’s true,” Gino said quietly. They all looked at him. He straightened, nervous. “I’m sorry,” he said to Cassius. “But I think you’re wr—mistaken. Humans aren’t cowards by nature. But we live in groups and families and towns and we look out for each other. We can’t afford to only think about the things that are good for us—we have to think about the danger to our families too. That’s why we’re doing this. It’s why we’re doing any of this. Because the Sorcerer King is bad for everyone in Ech’kent, not just the four of us. That’s why we’re here.” 

Gino averted his eyes as Cassius stared at him for a long moment, feeling like he might get eaten. Slowly, he wrapped his tail around his waist. “Is that so?” he asked. “I suppose that is how you’ve been so successful as a species. Very well. In that case, you will have to make plans under the assumption that you must convince your fellow humans to act despite the danger it will bring to their families.” 

Sighing in relief, Gino leaned against Sawyer. He’d been worried something bad would happen, but he’d had to say it. Sawyer put his arm around Gino. “Good job,” he said quietly, and Gino smiled. 

“Or,” Cyrus said slowly, “find a way to minimize that danger. Prove to them that we can keep their families safe while we fight the Sorcerer King.” 

“So…” Sean said, looking at his fingers. “We just need to figure out how four naked boys and a dragon are going to keep the whole plateau safe from an evil sorcerer and his entire army? That doesn’t sound that hard.” 

Gino rolled his eyes. Not hard at all. All they needed was a miracle. 

Cassius snorted, standing up. “Enjoy yourselves. I’m going to find some food for you all.” 

“Thank you,” Sawyer said, smiling at him. 

Cassius didn’t reply to that, but he did look at Sawyer. “Will you just fuck him? You both clearly want to, and it’s distracting.” 

Gino blinked, heat rising in his face as he pretended not to know what Cassius was talking about. “Uh…I’m not sure what you…”

“What point is there in lying?” Cassius asked. “Humans are so strange. Either fuck or stop acting like you want to. And one of you get ready for me when I return.” 

And he headed to the mouth of the cave, a shadow falling over them as he transformed, and was gone. 

The four of them were silent for a second, Gino now very aware of how close he was to Sawyer, and how hard he still was. And, well, that Sawyer was also hard. 

Being naked all the time made it harder to hide that than Gino was used to. 

“That was weird,” Sean said with a snort. “I wonder why he thinks you guys…” he trailed off, looking at them more closely. “Uh…”

Oops. Gino smiled. “Maybe he’s just…confused?”

“You guys are…sitting really close,” Sean pointed out. “Do you really want to…”

Shit. Sean was Gino’s best friend, he couldn’t lie to him. Anymore. “Y-yeah…” he admitted. “Uh. Well. I do, anyway?”

Sawyer sighed, hugging Gino closer. “I meant to tell you, Sean.” 

“Wait, meant to…have you guys been…”

Gino nodded. “For a couple of months.” He felt…kind of shitty. Which he had since the beginning. It just seemed like kind of a low thing to do, having sex with his best friend’s brother. But he’d liked it so much and Sawyer was so nice. 

“Well…” Sean looked from them to Cyrus. “You knew, didn’t you?”

Cyrus shrugged. “It wasn’t any of my business.” 

Sean took a deep breath, moving a little so he was away from Gino and Sawyer. He didn’t seem mad. He didn’t seem happy either. “Well…I guess…if you like each other and stuff…that’s good? I’m…go for it. I mean, since Cassius wants you to and all, you probably should…”

“We don’t have to, Sean,” Sawyer said. They hadn’t touched each other since the town had been destroyed, as much as Gino had wanted to. 

Sean smiled, though. “You should. But I’m totally going to watch. Seeing as there are no bedrooms here or anything.”

The cave was just a big cave, with some piles of treasure in the corners and not much else. It wasn’t like there was any privacy. “That’s a bit weird,” Sawyer told his brother. 

“Is it?” Gino asked. He smiled at Sean, then at Sawyer, and then climbed into Sawyer’s lap. “You all just watched me suck Cassius’s cock. We’ve all watched each other get fucked by him, why would this be so different?” 

“Gino…”

“Come on, Sawyer,” Sean egged. “Do it. We can all see how much you want to.” 

“May as well,” Cyrus said. “It’s not like there’s any point in hiding our sexuality anymore, is there?”

“Yeah,” Gino said. “Yeah.” And he kissed Sawyer on the mouth, something that neither of them was good at but that they both liked doing anyway. Sawyer probably ended up tasting Cassius’s salt, which made Gino smile. “I probably won’t even need any stretching thanks to our dragon friend. Please, Sawyer?”

Sawyer swallowed audibly. “Fine…okay.” He took Gino in his arms, lay him down on the warm rock. “I…did want to. I’ve missed touching you.” 

Gino nodded, watching Sawyer spit on his hand to wet his cock, then wrapping his arms around Sawyer’s neck. “Me too.” He found he didn’t even care that Sean and Cyrus were watching. It was…nice, actually. For it not to be a secret. Not to have to lie to anyone. “I’m glad…I’m glad that I still have you—both of you.” 

He didn’t know what he’d have done if he’d lost Sawyer too. 

“Yeah,” Sawyer agreed, pressing. And he pushed inside Gino easily; Gino barely felt it except with the good sting. “Yeah.” 

They didn’t say anything else as they did it there on the cave floor, Sawyer moving slowly at first, but urgency overtaking him after a few minutes, making him go faster and faster, his kisses getting harder. Gino held him tight, wanting him close, wanting him deep, wanting him there, and Sawyer gave him all that he wanted and more. 

By the time Gino came he was spent, just tired, and all he wanted to do was let Sawyer hold him forever and ever until all this went away and everything was normal again. 

Sawyer came inside him with a soft whisper of Gino’s name, and a gasp of breath on his forehead. And he gently pulled out, laying on his back and pulling Gino onto his chest, where Gino rested his head. Beside them, Sean had obviously jerked off watching; there was cum on his belly. Cyrus was hard too when Gino looked, but he hadn’t done anything about it. “You guys really like each other, huh?” Sean asked. 

“Yeah,” Gino said quietly. “We do.” He felt much safer in Sawyer’s arms than he had before. “I’m really glad I have you guys—both of you. I mean it.” 

“I’m glad too” Sawyer said. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Gino.” 

Gino nodded, eyes wet. 

They stayed like that even after Cassius came back with a charred mountain lion and told them that he wouldn’t have told them to fuck if he’d known they would start crying. Gino didn’t care. He’d lost almost everyone he loved. The fact that he still had anyone was a miracle. 

Sawyer was Gino’s miracle.


	3. For Most Rebels, The Ends Justify the Means and the Goal Is Enough to Occupy One's Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for something fun!

Sean couldn’t say that having a dick up his ass was his favourite thing in the world. His parents had always told him to try something a few times before he decided he didn’t like it, and it had been more than a few times now, and well, he didn’t like it much.

He didn’t hate it or anything. It wasn’t like he was running away from the cave or hiding from Cassius or begging him not to or anything like that. It didn’t hurt anymore; it mostly just felt weird having it up there. Maybe if it were smaller or something, that wouldn’t be too bad. But Cassius was really big. 

Sean knew he wasn’t alone in that—Sawyer didn’t care much for it, though Gino seemed to like it. And it was always hard to tell what Cyrus was thinking, but he was the one who Cassius fucked the most often and he often volunteered, so maybe he did. Sean just figured it was like eating turnip or beets—it was something that wasn’t that big a deal at the end of the day, and if he did it he got to have a cookie. 

In this case, the cookie was revenge, and that sounded so stupid that as soon as Sean had thought it the first time Cassius had fucked him he’d known he was never going to say it out loud. 

Gino really did seem to like it, Sean thought to himself, idly watching him and Sawyer from his position in Cassius’s lap. Cassius never needed them to do anything except be there for his dick to go in. He had his hands on Sean’s shoulders, bouncing Sean on his cock, his tail wrapped around Sean’s midsection to keep him in place. It was actually kind of nice, being held in place like that. Being held like that. He’d have liked it more if Cassius would put his arms around him, Sean thought. 

And stopped biting him, Sean didn’t like the biting much. He winced as Cassius did, leaving another mark on his shoulder. It was how he showed that they belonged to him, or something. Sean thought the dick in his asshole showed that pretty well. 

He wished Sawyer and Gino weren’t having sex. It was hard not to watch them, and hard not to get hard doing it. Sean was going to cum and it was mostly because he was watching his brother and his best friend fuck and he felt like that was weird and he felt like everyone else thought so too even though there weren’t really any real boundaries that existed between any of them anymore. 

He was happy that they were happy together and stuff, though Sean could also admit privately to himself that he was a little jealous watching them. Not because he wanted any dicks up his ass, but it would be kind of nice if he could get one from someone he cared about. 

Cassius’s tail tightened around Sean’s waist and he bit Sean again, the clearest indication that he was almost done. Sure enough, a second later he gave a really hard thrust up inside Sean and started to cum, which was the part of being fucked that Sean actually kind of liked, weirdly. It felt funny, and in a way that was nice. Cassius shot in eight spurts, his dick throbbing inside Sean, seeming to get wider. When he was done he sighed happily, leaning back, his tail loosening around Sean but not letting him go. Sean sat there kind of awkwardly without Cassius’s chest to help him balance, not sure if he was allowed to go or if Cassius would want to go again like he had yesterday, when he’d ended up fucking Sean four times in a row. 

Maybe he’d like it more if it was happening less frequently, too.

Anyway, Cassius didn’t let him go so Sean just sat there a moment, watching Gino and Sawyer and sort of rocking back and forth on Cassius to keep his balance. He didn’t even notice Cyrus sitting there beside them until he talked a few minutes later. “If you two are done, can I borrow you for a second?” he asked Cassius, smiling briefly at Sean. 

“Fine,” Cassius said lazily, tail unwrapping from Sean. “Take his place. What do you want?”

“I want you to take us to Zegid tomorrow,” Cyrus said, giving Sean a hand and helping him stand, Cassius’s dick sliding out of him forever and with a long squelch. “It’s the northeasternmost settlement.” 

“I’m familiar with it,” Cassius said. “You wish to start your recruiting there?”

Sean looked at Cyrus, steadying himself. “I thought we decided to start in Tchkrain.” The southern town was close to Endlyn, the only village almost as close as Henth, which was the second biggest town in Ech’kent. 

Cyrus nodded, moving past Sean and sitting on Cassius, facing him. He took Cassius’s dick in his hand and guided it towards his hole like it was no big deal. Cyrus was especially careful to keep himself stretched and ready for Cassius. He said it paid to be prepared. 

Which was probably why he’d had all those knives under his clothes. 

“Tchkrain has a road going to it, a paved one,” Cyrus explained as he took Cassius inside him. “Zegid is a little more isolated, which gives us more cover. And it’s closer to Henth, so once we have a firmer hold we can recruit there without having to cross the river.” 

“Crossing the river isn’t hard when you’re riding a dragon,” Sean said, as Cyrus started to ride the dragon. “This isn’t what we agreed, Cyrus.” For all that Cyrus claimed he wasn’t speaking for the plateau since he wasn’t from here, and or all that he claimed he was letting them make the decisions and was only helping, Cyrus did a lot of decision making.

“I know. I’m not changing the plan without telling anyone.” Cyrus smiled. “I wanted to talk to Cassius about it first to see if he’s willing to change plans. Then I’ll talk to you guys about it and explain why I think it’s best, okay?”

“I don’t care what your plans are,” Cassius said, hands behind his head as he let Cyrus do the work. 

Sean wanted to say something else, but he didn’t know what to say, so he just turned away, went over to Sawyer and Gino. They were just finishing up now, moving to do the cuddling thing they always did after. He felt bad interrupting them, but it was also kind of annoying—they’d cuddle for hours if he let them. 

He knelt beside them, sitting on his knees, looking down at the cum on Gino’s belly. He liked it so much. “Cyrus is trying to change the plan,” he said.

“What?” Sawyer asked, getting up on an elbow. Gino’s eyes opened and looked up. 

“He’s talking Cassius into taking us to Zegid first instead if Tchkrain,” he said. “I called him out and he just told me not to worry about it.”

He felt like a tattletale, but Sawyer was better at talking to Cyrus than he was. 

Sawyer sighed, sat up. He kissed Gino on the forehead. “I’m going to go talk to him.”

“Aw…” Gino complained. “I want to cuddle.”

“Cuddle Sean. I’ll be back soon.” Sawyer glanced at Sean, smiled. “You guys could have a turn if you wanted.” 

Sean went warm even as Gino brightened. “Really?”

“Sure, you’re friends, right?” Sawyer shrugged, patted Sean on the shoulder, and got up to go bother Cassius and Cyrus.

Sean and Gino looked at each other for a moment, quiet, then Gino smiled, tugged Sean closer. “Come on—you didn’t cum from Cassius’s cock, did you?”

“No,” Sean admitted. He usually didn’t. “If you’re sure it’s okay.”

“Sure! I like it.”

“Pervert,” Sean muttered, even as he got on his hands and knees and let Gino position him. He was kind of excited, actually. He’d never been on top like this before. 

“Come on, put it in,” Gino urged, pulling Sean closer again. 

Sean nodded, and pushed inside, easily sliding in since Sawyer had just been in there. And that was kind of weird again, but he ignored it as heat enveloped him. “Oh, wow,” he said, closing his eyes.

“It’s g-good, right?”

“Yeah…” Sean said, and he began to move and it got better, the heat spreading out from his dick until it seemed to cover his whole body, and he was sure it must be covering Gino’s too, and he’d never felt so close to his friend, never felt so close to anyone. He put his hands on Gino’s shoulders, and Gino put his hands on Sean’s hips, and they kissed.

Sean came way too fast, but that was just because of Cassius fucking him earlier. “Normally I’d have lasted longer than that…” he muttered.

“I know.” Gino kissed him again. He hadn’t cum, but he’d just gone with Sawyer and he didn’t seem like he was going to complain, and Sean pulled out and lay beside him. “I’m sorry,” he said suddenly.

“Sorry for what?”

“That I never told you about me and Sawyer. I wanted to. I just…didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Sean smiled, pulled Gino into a bit of that cuddle he was missing. He was so nice. “It’s okay. You’re a good friend.”

“Thanks, Sean.” Gino sounded happy as he rested his head against Sean’s shoulder.

“I do wish you’d told me, though. Or that Sawyer had.” He was a little hurt that they’d kept it a secret, that was all. 

Gino nodded. “We were going to. We’d talked about it and stuff, right before…” he trailed off.

Sean didn’t say anything. He’d been at home with Sawyer when suddenly Cyrus had run into the house and told them to run away. 

He pulled Gino a little closer. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered. 

“Me too,” Gino said. “I’m so happy you and Sawyer are safe. And Cyrus too.”

“Yeah,” Sean said, looking over at him. He was still riding Cassius, talking intently with Sawyer now. “Cyrus too.” 

They lay there quietly for a minute or so, watching the others. “Maybe we should go over there,” Gino muttered after a minute, even though he sounded sleepy. “We shouldn’t let the three of them make decisions without us.”

Sean nodded. “And they will if we let them.”

“Yeah,” Gino sighed, sitting up and pulling Sean with him. “Let’s…”

A shadow darkened the entrance to the cave, too suddenly to be a cloud. They looked over and saw someone, no, two someones standing there in the entrance. Tails, wings and horns were on display. “Uh…”

Cassius had sat up, Cyrus still in his lap. “The fuck do you two want?”

They came into the cave, two dragons, eyes on Cassius first, but flicking across the others. Mostly identical except for their colouring. One had bright green wings with flashes of yellow, the other blue with what might have been red in there. They were tall and skinny and angular and they both looked kind of like Cassius. “When did you get humans?” The green one asked.

“Not an answer to my question,” Cassius growled. Cyrus looked worried, which was fair since he was the one stuck between them. 

The two looked at each other. “Can we borrow them?”

“Please?” his twin asked.

“Not if you can’t answer a simple question.” Cassius’s tail was lashing back and forth on the ground. 

“The matriarch wants to see you,” The blue dragon said, sounding nervous. 

Cassius sighed, gave a few more thrusts into Cyrus, and bit him as he came, letting out a happy breath. “Fine,” he said after a second. “You can borrow them while I’m gone.”

Sean felt his stomach sink. “Cassius,” Sawyer said. 

Cassius ignored him, standing up still inside Cyrus. “In human terms, these two are my brothers. You’ll defer to them almost as you would me.”

“But…” Sean started, as Cassius’s brother grinned at each other. 

“What are their names?” Cyrus asked.

Cassius lifted Cyrus off his dick and put him in the blue dragon’s arms, growling out something that sounded like his own name. 

“Claudius,” Cyrus said, looking up at the blue dragon. He looked at the green. “And Castor.”

“Don’t mark them,” Cassius said as he headed for the mouth of the cave, stretching his wings. “Don’t hurt them. They’ll need to be fed later. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

And he left, shifting into his larger form and rising into the air, leaving them all in the cave in silence for a moment.

Well, they were definitely all getting fucked by two more dragons today. Sean sighed.

“I’ll take these two to start,” Claudius said, carrying Cyrus over to Sawyer and laying him on the ground, grabbing his dick and shaking it to get it hard, which didn’t take long. 

Castor nodded, smiling at Sean and Gino. “I’ll take these two, then. We’ll switch after.” He knelt down, hardening, and pulled Sean over to him. Sean didn’t bother protesting, just spread his legs.

Castor flipped him over as Claudius started to fuck Cyrus, and he put Sean on top of Gino on his hands and knees before just pushing his dick in without ceremony. Thank God for Cassius’s cum from before, or Sean would have been ripped in half. As it was, he only grunted.

As Castor picked up speed, Gino leaned up and kissed him. “A bit jealous,” he admitted.

Sean snorted. “You’ll get a turn.”

He did. Once Castor finished with Sean, he flipped them and fucked Gino, and then as promised, the two dragons switched, and Claudius took turns on both of them. And then they went out to get food and by the time they came back, they were ready to go again. Cassius didn’t come back that night.

It was fine. Sean didn’t care that much. He just let it happen, held Gino’s hand when he could, and thought about eating cookies.


	4. It Shouldn't Come As A Surprise When Rebels Keep Secrets

Castor wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that a human had changed his name for him. Why should he have to answer to some mammalian glob of sounds just because humans lacked a bunch of vocal muscles? 

“Ah…ung, Castor…” 

He had to admit, though, that mammalian glob of sounds sounded pretty appealing when it came out the other end of a mammalian glob of person. And this end of the human named Gino felt pretty good around his cock as Castor fucked him. 

It was absolutely an insult that Cassius—he’d get used to using that name eventually—had given Castor and Claudius permission to make use of his humans. It was a diminishment of their ability to hoard their own possessions. But Castor wasn’t complaining overly. He got to fuck something and defy the matriarch while remaining under the wing of his siremate.

Cassius had always been a bit soft on him and Claudius anyway. He’d let them sleep in his cave for a few weeks after they’d gotten too big to live to live with their sire, instead of just chasing them away like he ought to have. And he hardly ever bit them.

He’d also always been fairly open about what he was doing with them, which made it all the stranger that he still hadn’t told any of them why the matriarch had summoned him before or what she’d said to him. Castor hadn’t asked because that was a good way to get hit, but his curiosity was getting the better of him. Cassius was over on the other end of the cave, cock buried in the human called Cyrus, who seemed to be his favourite. They’d been talking quietly while they fucked, but the other two humans had come over to join them.

They were all riled up about the trip they’d made to the town called Tchkrain to try and recruit more humans to their bizarre rebellion against their leader. It hadn’t gone well—something to do with roads and grain that Castor had honestly not cared about. He thought if they wanted this Sorcerer King dead so badly they ought to go just kill him like normal people. But no, that wasn’t on the table for some stupid human reason. 

So instead they’d come back here to pout and talk and Castor and Claudius had been made to take turns flying around the plateau looking for stray humans who they might convince to join them, especially in the region of Endlyn, where there might be more survivors than the four Cassius had found. 

Apparently all that had to happen for Cassius to break the major injunction not to interact with humans was for a town to get slaughtered. Castor kind of wondered if there were enough survivors to go around or if he was going to hoard them all. 

Who was he kidding, of course Cassius planned to hoard them all. 

Castor came with a grunt, pumping his cum inside Gino as he pressed the human into the ground. “Castor…”

“I like the way that sounds when you cry it like that,” Castor told him, giving a hard thrust with his last spurt before pulling his cock out of Gino. 

Gino rolled over, smiled at him. “Will you carry me over there? I want to hear what they’re talking about but my legs are all shaky.” 

Castor snorted. “Carry yourself.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Gino put his arms up in the air, and Castor looked at him for a long moment before sighing and picking the human up—it wasn’t like he weighed anything—and carried him over to the others, since he wanted to hear what they were saying anyway. He deposited Gino in Sawyer’s lap, sitting down as well.

“We haven’t proven that we can keep them safe, just like Cyrus was saying,” Sawyer said, arms wrapping around Gino automatically. “And the king lied to them. He made them all think he was going to help them.” 

“He is…fuck, he is helping them,” Cyrus panted. “He’s doing the things he said…ah…he would.” 

“That doesn’t mean he’s not still evil,” Sean said, sounding irritated.

“He didn’t say it did,” Cassius growled at him. “But you won’t be convincing the humans of that just by talking at them.” 

“Then…what do we do?” Gino asked, sounding hopeless. It didn’t take much to make them sound hopeless.

Cassius held Cyrus tighter, biting him as he came. Panting, Cyrus waited until he was done. “We have to…find some way to prove to them. He murdered everyone in Endlyn for no reason. There has to be a way to prove it.”

“Us saying it in Tchkrain didn’t prove it,” Sawyer challenged, in a tone that, had someone used speaking to Castor, would have had him getting ready to fight them. “Or at least it didn’t make them care.” 

“A few people did, just not enough,” Cyrus said quietly, head resting on Cassisus’s shoulder. It was a posture that bespoke comfort to Castor. And most strangely, Cassius seemed to be returning it, stroking Cyrus’s back slowly. His favourite for sure. “We need a way to make more of them care.” 

As he said that, Claudius’s shadow fell over the cave and Castor’s eggmate was coming inside. “I’m back,” he called. “And look.”

The thing he wanted them to look at was another human, a skinny, wide-eyed thing that looked terrified. He was hiding behind Claudius, peeking out at them. 

“Max?” Gino asked, getting up suddenly from Sawyer’s lap. “Oh my God, Max, you’re here.” 

“Gino!” 

“You know him?” Claudius asked, as the other humans stood, even Cyrus. “I found him pawing around Endlyn.” 

“I heard…” Max had come out from behind Claudius and was slowly approaching them. “I thought you were dead…”

“We got away. Cassius helped us.” Gino embraced Max, both of them doing that crying thing that humans liked to do so much. The other three had sort of joined them, which gave Castor has opportunity. Cassius had stood as well, but was hanging back. 

Castor stood behind him, tail wrapped around his waist, casual. “So what’d the matriarch want to talk to you about?” 

Cassius glanced at Castor, his attention briefly leaving the humans. “You chose now to ask me that?” 

“Seems like a bad idea to do it while you were fucking one of them, which his basically always.” 

Cassius snorted and turned back to the humans, arms crossed. Gino was rapidly telling Max what had been happening to them, a jumble of words that was hard to follow. 

“Come on, don’t be like that,” Castor said, because being obnoxious sometimes worked. Sometimes Cassius gave him and Claudius what they wanted so they’d go away. He nudged his siremate. “Tell me.” 

“If I wanted to tell you, you’d know.” 

“So, um, why aren’t any of you wearing clothes?” Max asked tentatively as if afraid for the answer. 

“Oh, we don’t do that anymore,” Gino said. “It was Cassius’s first rule. There are pretty much only the two.” 

“What’s the second one?”

“I’m just going to keep asking you until you tell me,” Castor said, putting his best pester on. Worst-case scenario Cassius would punch him or something. 

“What?” Max asked, loudly. Claudius was smirking behind him. 

Cassius sighed and in a quick second Castor was on his knees, Cassius’s hand on his horn. “Then do something more useful with your mouth,” he said, as the humans tried to explain what was happening to Max. Castor had a feeling they’d all be fucking him by the end of the day. 

“Aw, come on…” Castor stopped talking as Cassius’s cock hit his face. He sighed and started licking it clean.

“That’s better,” Cassius said. “Now be quiet about that. Let’s find out if Max decides to stay with us or not.” 

By the time Cassius’s cum was all over Castor’s face, Max’s clothes were on the cave floor and Castor was no closer to finding out what Cassius was hiding from him.


	5. It's Not Unusual for A Rebel to Feel Discouraged At Times

They were quiet, all of them, as they flew back to the cave, clinging to Cassius’s back. Flying on a dragon was way harder than it looked, and it didn’t look anything in the vicinity of easy. 

They’d just been to Ginsm, a mining town on the south side of the Thirnyd River. Sawyer’s grandmother was from there, or had been before she’d gotten cancer and died a few years ago. Even with Cassius flying over the town, they’d barely convinced anyone of the necessity for a rebellion. The king had lowered the price of grain, and he was building a road and a proper bridge over the river to let them get to Jdinrma-Hash year-round. 

What had happened in Endlyn had been a tragedy, but rebelling when there was no reason to would just lead to a repeat of that. They’d been offered homes in Ginsm if they gave up being foolish. 

Sawyer felt like he was hitting the ground from falling when Cassius landed, and he and the others all scrambled down, sliding down his wing and heading slowly into the cave. He transformed and followed them in. Sawyer didn’t need to look to know he was hard. “I’ll take you,” he said to Sawyer as he passed. 

“Yeah,” Sawyer sighed, because what else was there to say?

Five minutes later Sawyer was on his belly on the cave floor, Cassius’s cock buried inside him, the others sitting in front of him. “What do we do?” Gino asked, resting his head on Sean’s shoulder as they watched Cassius fuck Sawyer. Sawyer barely felt it. 

“I don’t know,” Sawyer grunted, wishing Cassius’s hands weren’t pinning his shoulders, he wanted to move a little. “I don’t…I don’t know.” It hurt to admit that, that he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything, he didn’t know why they were here. 

He felt like he was letting them all down. His friends. Ech’kent. Gino. Even if his head wasn’t on the floor, he wouldn’t have been able to look Gino in the eye. Especially not when he said, in a quiet voice. “But…” and nothing else.

“Hey.” Cyrus put his hand on Gino’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We just got back, right? Let Cassius do his thing and then we’ll talk about it.” 

Gino looked at Cyrus, then nodded. “Y-yeah, sure.” 

His thing, Sawyer thought. That was about right. He’d thought Cassius could help them. But he didn’t want to help them, not really. Sure he flew them around and stuff, but he didn’t _do_ anything except stick his cock in them whenever he felt like it. Like they were just stuff that he’d found. 

“Yeah,” Max said, cheerful. He was so cheerful, even more than Gino. He’d stayed cheerful even after they told him what he had to do to stay here. He’d stayed cheerful after three dragons had fucked him in turn. He’d stayed cheerful even after they’d told him that the king wasn’t as nice as he thought. “It’ll be okay. If our plan isn’t working, we just need a new plan, right?” 

“Yeah!” Gino said, nodding, looking up as Castor and Claudius landed in the cave’s mouth. They’d been a bit behind them leaving Ginsm. Sawyer wished he could believe their enthusiasm. He wished he could believe that there was a point to any of this. Sean was quiet, he noticed.

The twins were hard too, because horny was all dragons ever were as far as Sawyer could tell, and they took Gino and Max respectively. Claudius had found Max and obviously thought that gave him some claim over him, he always picked Max when he could. Cyrus, since he hadn’t been picked this time, stood up and stretched. “I’m going to go for a walk, I’ll be back in a bit.” 

Sawyer barely noticed him go. He should have, he should have paid more attention to Cyrus. Cyrus was smarter than him, and when he’d ignored Cyrus’s ideas before it had all gone wrong. 

It was hard to think of one thing for too long with Cassius up his ass, and soon he was pushed down even farther, as if Cassius was trying to break his shoulders, and he started to cum. Sawyer closed his eyes and let it happen, his dick painfully pressed against the stone of the cave. Predictably, Cassius bit him after he was done, and he didn’t pull out, shifting as if to start fucking again. Whatever, it wasn’t like Sawyer was good for anything else.

“Hey, can I have a turn?” Sean asked suddenly, still sitting beside Sawyer. 

Sawyer looked up. “Huh?”

“Can I have a turn?” he asked, not Sawyer but Cassius. “Can you fuck me instead?”

Cassius looked at Sean, shrugged, and pulled out of Sawyer. “Fine. Come here.”

“Sean…” Sean didn’t like being fucked. Sawyer didn’t care. What was he doing?

Sean smiled at him. “You should go clear your head.”

“I’m fine.”

He leaned down, laying beside Sawyer so Cassius could have access to his hole. “You’re upset and it’s showing. You can’t let everyone see you like that, they look up to you.”

“I…”

“Especially Gino, Sawyer,” Sean said pointedly. “You’re worrying him. Go for a walk. You’ll feel better.”

Sawyer looked at his brother for a second, then sighed. “Thanks, Sean,” he said, kissing Sean’s forehead. “I’ll be back.”

“See you,” he said, the last coming out as a grunt as Cassius shoved into him. 

“I’ll pay you back, too,” Sawyer promised, standing shakily. He’d take Sean’s turn next time or something. 

He staggered out of the cave, cum running down his legs, and sighed. He didn’t want to go for a walk, but it did feel better to be outside, even if the sky was grey. It had been that annoying overcast not-quite-rain clouds endlessly for the last few days. 

For a good while Sawyer just stood there, eyes shut, leaning against the outside of the cave. He could hear the rest of them in the cave, but it became a quiet sound, one that was easy to count as background noise after a while. It was the background noise of his life now, after all. Why had that happened? Why was this happening? 

He should have gone to the nearby pool and cleaned up, but he just didn’t feel like moving. Sawyer just wanted to stand here by himself until the sun came out. 

“Hey.”

Sawyer didn’t open his eyes. He hadn’t heard Cyrus coming. “Why are you so quiet?”

“Habit,” Cyrus said, voice coming closer. “Lived with some banshees for a while and I always had to sneak to get snacks at night. They’ve got great hearing, so I got good at it.”

Sawyer smiled a little in spite of himself. “Liar.” Cyrus’s stories had always made him smile. It was why they’d become friends when Cyrus had appeared in the plateau. 

“You can think whatever you want. I’m going to suck you off, is that okay?”

“Sure,” Sawyer said. He was hard, he guessed. Cyrus shuffled a little and soon there was his hand, followed by his mouth, sucking on him with practiced ease. He did this a lot, Sawyer knew. 

Sawyer liked Gino’s mouth better, but he was closer to an orgasm than he’d thought, since he came in just a quick minute. He sighed when he was done, and Cyrus stood up. “Thanks,” Sawyer said, opening his eyes.

Cyrus smiled at him, held his fingers a little apart. “I was a little disappointed when I found out about you and Gino, not going to lie. I had a crush.”

“On me?” 

“Yes, on you, dummy,” Cyrus said, leaning beside Sawyer and looking up at the clouds. “I wish the sun would come out.”

Sawyer felt funny all of the sudden. He’d never thought of himself as the kind of person someone might have a crush on. That had been his friend Ori. But Ori was dead. “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “They’re just clouds.”

“Yeah.” Cyrus agreed, sighing as well. “Is it okay if I keep having just a bit of a crush on you? I promise not to be weird about it.”

It was weird to ask it like that. But Cyrus was a foreigner, maybe that was how they did this up north. “Sure, if you want. What about Cassius?”

“What about him?”

Sawyer snorted. “Come on. He likes you.”

“I don’t think he thinks of people like that. Not exactly boyfriend material,” Cyrus chuckled. 

“No, he likes you,” Sawyer insisted. “Claudius likes Max and he likes you. It’s obvious.”

Not that he would want a dragon for a boyfriend, but hey. 

“Sure,” Cyrus snorted.

“I’m serious. Ask him to do something, I bet he would.”

Cyrus shrugged. “Maybe.” He took a breath, looked up again. “This is all my fault, I’m sorry.”

“What? It’s not.”

“It is. The way we’ve been going about this was my idea and it’s not working. The rebellion in Endlyn…I mean it wasn’t my idea but I was involved in it, and it got everyone killed. I’m trying to help and I just keep screwing everything up. I’m sorry.”

“It’s because we’re not listening to you, though,” Sawyer insisted, Cyrus’s self-deprecation making him want to be defensive. “You were right, we should have gone to Tchkrain first. Zegid was a bust, and…”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. People don’t care. I didn’t count on people just not caring at all, Sawyer. I really thought…God, why don’t they care?”

Sawyer realized something then. “You came out here so that we wouldn’t see that you were upset.” 

Cyrus nodded. “If we get discouraged then it’s over.” 

“Yeah,” Sawyer said. “You’re right. There must be a way to make people care. To make them listen, and pay attention to us.” 

“Dragons aren’t even convincing them,” Cyrus said.

“Yeah. They’re more afraid of the invader than they are of a dragon flying overhead.” 

Cyrus nodded, slowly creasing his features into a frown. “You’re right,” he said quietly. He turned and looked at Sawyer. “What if that weren’t true?”

“It is,” Sawyer said. That was obvious.

“But what if we could make it so it weren’t? We were saying before that we need to show people that they’re safe in rebelling with us. If we show them that the dragons are more powerful than the king…”

“But they won’t attack the castle,” Sawyer reminded Cyrus. 

“Not the castle,” Cyrus said. “Have you ever been to the cathedral in Jdinrma-Hash?” 

Sawyer frowned now. “Sure, a few times, not in the last little while. Why?”

“Before we met Cassius, if I’d told you that dragons were angry about invaders in the plateau, what would you have said?”

“I’d have laughed,” Sawyer admitted, wondering why Cyrus was so intense suddenly. “They obviously didn’t care or they’d have done something. And it’s not like we still think they’re gods.”

“Not since the Catechism came in and told you they weren’t. They’re invaders too.” Cyrus smiled. “Six months ago, if a dragon had shown up and destroyed that cathedral for no reason, what would you have thought?”

“I would have thought…” Sawyer trailed off, picturing it. “That they were angry with us for ignoring them.” He didn’t like where this was going, or the way Cyrus’s eye was sparkling.

“And that they didn’t want invaders in the land, right?”

“I guess.” Sawyer took a breath. “Cyrus, we can’t blow up the cathedral. We’re not the bad guys here.”

“No, no, there won’t be people in it,” Cyrus assured him. “We’ll do it at night when nobody’s there. The point isn’t to hurt people, it’s to make them think that their old gods are angry about the new one. If people start taking up the old religion again and they know that we have the favour of the dragons…”

“They’ve have to listen to us,” Sawyer said, finishing Cyrus’s thought. He felt like the sun was starting to come out. “They might even start to think, if the dragons are mad about an invading church, maybe they’re also mad about an invading king. We might not even have to recruit after that.”

Cyrus nodded, smiling now. “We can also get rid of that monastery on Rh’eyltakak. Just for the symbolism of it. It’s too bad, there’s probably a historic library there or something…but it’s worth it. It’s within striking distance of the castle.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Sawyer had to ask.

“Then we’ll have blown up some landmarks for no reason and potentially have gotten the king’s attention,” Cyrus said, looking down for a second. “That’s going to be the drawback. But he might end up figuring it’s just dragons fucking around if he doesn’t know much about them. Lord Arkhewer might even tell him it’s because they’re mad and make him worried. Or he might think it’s an attack. The king’s the variable we can’t control,” Cyrus admitted. “Which is why I think I need go to and sneak into his castle.”

“What?” Sawyer asked. “No!”

Cyrus nodded, though. “We need someone who can spy on him. I can get a job as a cleaner or something and…”

“No, Cy, that’s too dangerous!” Who knew what the king would do to Cyrus. Rape him to death or light him on fire or…

“Someone needs to do it, Sawyer. If we’re going to be successful, we need someone who knows what the king is doing.”

“I’ll do it. At least I’m not the most recognizable person in Ech’kent.” And it wasn’t like Sawyer was doing anything here.

“No. What would Gino and Sean do if something happened to you?”

“What would I do if something happened to you?” 

Sawyer didn’t mean to raise his voice like that, but he did, and his cry echoed through the mountains and, it felt like, all of Ech’kent. “Sawyer…”

“You’re my best friend,” Sawyer said quietly. “I can’t do this without you.”

Cyrus was quiet for a second, before turning and hugging Sawyer. “Okay,” he whispered. “Sorry. We’ll figure something else out.”

Sawyer felt relieved at that; he’d been more worried than he’d known that Cyrus might leave, even if the possibility had only just arisen. “Thank you. Now we just have to convince Cassius to blow up a church for us.”

Cyrus smiled, patting Sawyer’s back. “Leave that to me. You’re the one who said I can probably convince our favourite dragon to do something for me if I try. So let’s go try.”

“Okay. Wait.” Sawyer grabbed Cyrus’s wrist before he could move. “He’s inside Sean right now.”

“I can probably talk him out of Sean.”

“What I mean is, uh…” Sawyer couldn’t quite look at him. “If you wanted maybe we could work on your crush a little before we go back in. Gino won’t mind.”

Cyrus’s face turned red, which was something Sawyer had always thought was funny about him. “If…are you sure? I don’t want to be…”

“We have way too much sex for it to be weird,” Sawyer assured him, smiling. He felt better, a little. “Come on, let’s hang out for a bit while everyone else is busy, like we used to.”

“Okay,” Cyrus said, and he pulled Sawyer close again. Maybe this wasn’t all as pointless as he’d thought.


	6. Rebels Don't Always Have to Agree As Long As Everyone Does What's Expected of Them

It was a big thing, as far as human things went. A building bigger than a dragon, Claudius figured he could easily fit inside it if he were to transform to get in. It was rounded at the top like a lot of human construction, with a loud bell. It had tall, colourful walls made of the easily shatterable substance that Max had called glass, set into better walls made of stone. 

It had a lot of space around it, but there were smaller, less interesting looking buildings nearby. Claudius wondered if the humans knew those were likely to be destroyed too. 

He circled the settlement called Jdinrma-Hash, waiting. It was dark, but every so often in a pool of fake light down there, he’d spot a human or five gawking up at him, which was the point. They wanted people to see them. 

And then Cassius’s fire lit the sky, penetrating the tallest part of the building called a cathedral, the bell ringing one loud sound before it melted. The stone started to fall. 

Claudius and Castor circled around with him, flapping hard to remain at the right height while they added their own fire to the rapidly growing conflagration, destroying more of the building. The glass walls had exploded outwards at Cassius’s first blast, raining colour down, reflecting firelight everywhere. A plume of ash was rapidly rising into the sky as the night was filled with cracks and with distant screams. Nobody was in the cathedral, supposedly—though Claudius had heard Cyrus say to Cassius that there would probably be a few priests inside even at night, whatever priests were supposed to be—and even if they were, they didn’t have time to flee. 

It took about five minutes for them to reduce the cathedral to rubble, then Cassius waved him and Castor off, banking around to go get the humans. They were going to wait a day, then come in and tell the people here why this had happened to them. It was all more complex than Claudius really thought necessary, but humans were just like that. He’d thought once that it was just that they were too stupid to come up with simple solutions for anything, but he was starting to wonder if it wasn’t that they were smarter than dragons. 

At least, the humans he knew seemed pretty fucking smart to him. 

Claudius flew alongside his eggmate for a short distance until they got to the hill where they’d left the humans, who were huddled nervously, shivering a little in the cold. Cassius landed, and Claudius nudged Castor to go next, since there wasn’t enough room for more than one full-sized dragon on there without crushing the humans. He went last, fluidly moving into his smaller form without stumbling like he always had when he was younger. Even just a few months go he’d had that problem, but he’d been transforming a lot the last few weeks. 

“The fire will likely burn into the morning,” Cassius was telling the humans as Claudius landed. Claudius ignored him and stood near Max, pulling him closer to keep him warm. He couldn’t have Max freezing to death. “We’ll return tomorrow as planned.”

“But maybe…” Sean said, because humans second-guessed everything they did. Max leaned into Claudius’s hold, smiling when Claudius wrapped his tail around him too. All the humans were _technically_ Cassius’s, Claudius knew that. But he also knew that Max was his. He was the one who’d found him and brought him to the others, after all. Cassius knew it too, and though he could have fought Claudius over it and won, he hadn’t, which meant he didn’t care as long as Claudius didn’t openly challenge him. He had the other four humans, after all. And Claudius was careful not to touch Cyrus too much since he was Cassius’s favourite. It worked out.

Castor didn’t have a human, but that was his problem. 

“We’ll do as we planned, Sean,” Sawyer said, hand on his siremate’s shoulder. 

“But…”

“Sean.” 

Sean demurred, though Sawyer had given him no reason to that Claudius had seen. He was the younger, but Sawyer had never hit him or fucked him or shown any sort of dominance in the time they’d been in the cave. Maybe Sean was just unusually passive, even for a human. 

“Let’s return to the cave,” Cassius said, looking over at the town. And at Cyrus, who hadn’t taken his eyes away from the plume of smoke that had been the cathedral. 

“Except us, right?” Max asked quietly. 

“Yes. You will go to the castle.” 

“I can still go if you don’t want to, Max,” Cyrus said, finally turning around. “It’s going to be dangerous.” 

“You shouldn’t go,” Claudius said, just above a growl. 

Someone needed to go spy on the Sorcerer King, to give them an ally within his castle. Max had volunteered, but from everything Claudius had heard about this human, it was dangerous. He didn’t approve. 

But Max wasn’t formally his, so he couldn’t forbid it.

“I’m going,” Max said firmly, to Cyrus, to Claudius, and to Gino, who’d been about to echo the sentiment. “It’s a way I can help. It’s the only way I can help.” 

“Still…”

“I’m going, Claudius.” 

Claudius looked away, holding him closer. If something happened to Max, he’d just go in and kill the Sorcerer King himself, human plans be damned. 

“Then you’ll go. We’ll be keeping an eye on the castle, and Cyrus has told you what to do once you get there,” Cassius said, coming over to stand in front of them, just close enough for his size to be obvious in comparison to Claudius’s. 

Max nodded. “I know. I’ll be fine.” 

“I expect you to be fine,” Cassius agreed. His cock was rising. “Come here before you go.” 

Max nodded, hiding a sigh, and slipped out from Claudius’s arm. Claudius held him there, but only for a second. And Max turned around. Cassius picked him up like he weighed nothing—which he didn’t—and slid him right down onto his cock, thrusting his hips forward. Max grunted in pain, but didn’t protest. 

Claudius should have stopped it. He should have fought Cassius off or at least tried to, he should have protested or held Max tighter or…but he’d done none of that. For all his bravado when he was in his head, Claudius was smaller and weaker than Cassius and they both knew it. And so he did nothing but stand there and watch as his siremate fucked his human. 

Max was always loud, and as they watched, he yelped and moaned as he bounced on Cassius’s cock, held up entirely by Cassius. Cassius watched not him, but Claudius, the whole time. “Problem?” 

That was when Claudius realized he’d been growling quietly. “N-no,” he said, looking down. 

Cassius nodded, broke eye contact for the first time, and bit Max on the shoulder, giving a mighty thrust inside as he came, Max crying out. “Good,” Cassius said, sliding Max off his cock. 

And handing him to Castor. “Take a turn, since we won’t see him for a while.” 

Now Claudius growled openly, but Castor smiled and did as Cassius said, putting Max on his hands and knees and getting down behind him, ploughing right in as Claudius moved to stop him.

Which he couldn’t, because Cassius grabbed his wrist, pushed him to the ground, spreading his legs. “Someone’s forgotten his place lately,” he said. 

“I…I haven’t.” He hadn’t. He just wanted Max. That was all. 

Cassius smirked. “Good.” He pressed the head of his cock against Claudius’s hole, and Claudius winced as he pushed inside. It had been a while since that had happened—with the humans around, Cassius had been occupied enough not to need him and Castor to do this for him, and he and Castor had been making use of the humans and not doing each other as much as they’d used to either. But Cassius pushed inside like he’d just fucked Claudius that morning, pinning Claudius to the ground and going fast while the humans watched in fascination, Cyrus with his hands on Sean’s cock and Sawyer fucking Gino standing.

It didn’t hurt enough for Claudius to mind it, and after a few minutes he started to forget about that, focusing on Cassius above him instead of how much he wanted to rip his eggmate’s head off for touching Max at all. 

When Castor came with a grunt, he pulled out of Max while Cassius kept pounding Claudius. “Go say goodbye to the rest of them,” he said, pushing Max towards the other humans. 

The other four humans took turns on Max while Castor watched to make sure they did, because he understood that Cassius was making a point. The humans seemed to understand that too, just doing as they were told for once. 

Claudius understood the point just fine, and he didn’t even bother moving when Cassius bit his arm and came inside him, or at least partially came inside him, pulling out halfway through to shoot his cum onto Claudius’s face. “Mine,” he said to Claudius, and it was all he needed to say.

“I know,” Claudius said. He did know that. 

“Good.” Cassius moved away, and Castor took his place. Claudius didn’t bother to wrestle him off, just letting him slide inside. 

“You’re lucky he didn’t let me kill you,” he muttered, not that bothered now. Castor was smaller than Cassius. 

Castor smirked, fucking rapidly, Cassius’s cum speeding him up. “You’re lucky you have something to get so upset about.” 

Claudius just growled, but let his eggmate have his fun. 

When he was done, Claudius pushed him off, standing without looking at anyone. Except Max, who came stumbling over, tripped, and had to be caught. “Careful,” he said gruffly. 

“Sorry…” Max smiled at him. “Let’s go?” 

Claudius nodded and put Max on his back, grabbing the small bag of covering he’d need for when he was in the castle. He cast one glance at Cassius, who nodded, and then took off into the air, transforming as he went. 

He regretted that he couldn’t feel Max on his back in his form, but Claudius could do nothing about that. He knew the human was there. It was a short flight from Jdinrma-Hash to the area in which the Sorcerer King made his home, and Claudius was landing not half an hour later. 

Max slid off his back, stretching his shoulders for a second before falling on his ass in the grass. “Ow.” 

“Did they hurt you?” Claudius asked, crouching in front of him.

“No, it’s fine.” Max smiled at him, and even kissed Claudius on the cheek, something he’d seen the humans doing and never understood. “It was only some dicks.” He smelled like cum, but not Claudius’s. 

Claudius picked him up and carried him, looking for a spring of water. He found one a few minutes later and set Max down in it, letting the water clean it off him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was because of me. Cassius thought I was getting too possessive of you so he had to remind me that you don’t belong to me.” 

“Mm,” Max said, while Claudius washed him off, his skin bumpy with the cold. “Why did he think that?” 

Claudius didn’t answer right away, and Max looked at him, another smile on his lips. “Was it because it was true?” 

“Yes. I…I’m very attached to you. You’re mine, Max. Not his. But he’s stronger than me, so I can’t…”

“It’s okay,” Max said, standing up, water dripping from him. He was hard. “You would if you could, and that’s what matters.” 

“It’s what you do that matters, not what you’d do if you could.” 

“So do something.” 

“I can’t fight Cassius, Max. He’d kill me.” As much as Claudius wanted to, knew he should at least try. It was what he was supposed to do. If he and Castor did it together, probably they’d win. But then they’d have to share. 

“I meant do something now. He’s not here, and I’m about to go to the king’s castle not smelling like anyone. If I belong to you shouldn’t that be wrong?” Max asked. He seemed so innocent.

But he was so much smarter than Claudius had given him credit for. Claudius smiled, grabbed him and gently put him on his back. “Good point,” he said, spreading Max’s legs. 

Max wrapped his arms around Claudius’s neck as Claudius entered him. There was still cum inside him from the others, slicking his way in, and Claudius didn’t waste any time in claiming what was his, ramming in, setting up a fast pace. He fucked Max under the sky for only a few minutes, because he hadn’t cum once during Cassius and Castor’s ministrations earlier. So sooner than he’d have liked he was shooting inside Max with a growl, biting his shoulder first on one side, then the other, drawing blood, marking him, marring the mark Cassius had put on him on purpose. 

Max had cum too, Claudius noticed afterwards, a mess on the boy’s belly. He smiled up at Claudius. “I liked that better than the others.”

Claudius smiled down at his human, a surge of possessiveness overtaking him. “Fly away with me. We’ll go somewhere else, not come back here.” 

“No,” Max said, shaking his head. “We can’t, Claudius. The others are counting on us.” 

“But…”

“No.” Humans didn’t respect hierarchies in the ways that dragons did. Maybe that was why Sawyer controlled Sean without hitting him. Maybe it was why Claudius liked Max so much. “I’m going to the castle.” 

Claudius sighed, displeased. “Fine.” 

“Maybe after, though.” 

“After?” 

“After the king is dead. There’ll be no reason for either of us to stay with Cassius and Gino and them, right? We can go then,” Max said, serious. “Wherever you want.” 

That possessiveness came back, and Claudius held Max tightly. “Okay. Good. That’s what we’ll do.” 

“Good. Hey, Claudius?”

“What?” 

“There’s no reason I can’t go to the castle tomorrow. Especially if I don’t get a good night’s sleep tonight.” 

Claudius looked down at his human. Max smiled. Claudius smiled back, and started moving his hips once more. “Then let’s make sure you go there smelling the right way.” 

By the time the sun rose, there was no hint in Max’s scent that anyone but Claudius had ever touched him.


	7. Rebels Often Have Interesting Negotiating Strategies

Living in the Sorcerer King’s castle wasn’t as terrifying as Max had heard it would be. Gino and the other guys had all told him how dangerous it was, and how high the chances were he’d get hurt, beaten up and raped and maybe even killed, but none of that had happened to Max. He’d just cleaned a lot of floors and washed a lot of dishes. It wasn’t really any different from when he’d helped out at the _Swallow’s Song_ in Jdinrma-Hash, except nobody here knew him so they didn’t make mean remarks about his mom. 

Max hadn’t really even seen the king, which was fine with him since he wasn’t totally sure what to think. He knew what Gino and them said about Endlyn, but when he’d met the king before he’d seemed so nice, and sad about what had happened. But one of them must be lying, and Max had to trust his friend even if he’d thought King Sam seemed friendly. He was the kind of person Max could be friends with if he wasn’t the king. Or at least Max had thought he was.

He was supposed to be here spying and figuring out what the king was up to and what the weaknesses in his defences might be, but honestly Max wasn’t super sure how to do that. But he’d figure it out, he had to—Gino was his best friend. 

In order to do that, Max had decided that his best option was to just walk around the castle after he was done all his work. That way he could see what there was to be seen, and he could report it to Claudius or whoever came to check on him every so often. He’d learned a lot about how many guards were in the castle and stuff, and he also knew about the weird wizard who called himself the Sea King, which he’d never heard anyone else talking about, and also the funny smelling monster called Scott. He’d never talked to any of them, but he’d heard the servants and guards talking about them. 

“Hey, kid, slacking off?”

Max smiled up at the castle guard who’d noticed him. The castle guards were all kind of horrible, the sort of general horribleness that came with having a little bit more power than everyone else. He’d known lots of guys like that back home. “No, sir, finished all my chores.” The guard looked to be slacking off, though. This wasn’t a usual route for them to travel, and he was alone. 

The guard, really barely an adult, snorted. “Good. Got a chore for you right here.” He grabbed his crotch, and probably thought that was clever.

Max smiled. “Sure.” This happened sometimes, somebody harassed him a bit about being somewhere. Giving out a blowjob or even just a handy was usually enough to make them go away. All the guards in the castle seemed to think that everyone else was there to suck their dicks. It was a bit weird. 

“Heh, figured you liked it,” the guy said, unlacing his pants with one hand. “Get to it, then,” 

Max shrugged, got down on his knees. After the time he’d spent in the cave with the dragons, it wasn’t like sucking a dick was that big a deal for him. He’d done it from time to time back in Jdinrma-Hash when he’d needed a few coins or needed someone to stop bothering him for a few days. He had to meet Claudius later, but he had time.

“Hey now,” a new voice said, footsteps approaching from behind Max. “What’s up, Quint? You look bored.” 

“Fuck off, Derek,” Quint said, cock out now. 

“Nah,” Derek said, coming around. He was about Max’s age but a little chubby, rounded features giving him an impish look, curling hair held back with a few clips. He was a castle servant too, one of the king’s attendants. Only a few servants were allowed to directly interact with the king. Just yesterday he’d gone out of the castle on an errand for the king, even. “Hey, Max.”

“Uh, hi, sir,” Max said, even though Derek was just Derek and he was really nice. He’d shown Max around the castle on his first day here and was the one who’d gotten him his position in the kitchen. 

“Just Derek, silly. Quint, put that away, Max doesn’t want it.” 

“Fuck off, he’s the one who asked for it,” Quint growled, glaring at Derek, whom he towered over.

“It’s, it’s really okay, Derek, I’m fine,” Max promised. He really didn’t want to make a scene over something stupid like a blowjob.

Derek just smiled, nodding at Max. Then he looked at Quint, smile not moving. “Go find Todd, that’s his job.”

They looked at each other for a long second, before Quint put his cock away, turning. “Whatever.” He stalked off, leaving Max alone with Derek.

Derek sighed. “If anyone is bothering you like that, let me know, okay? I can deal with it.” 

Max shook his head. “It’s really okay. He wasn’t really bothering me. I mean, I guess he was a bit, but I don’t mind.” Derek was so nice.

“You should. I’ve been working really hard to make sure that nobody gets bothered like that in the castle.”

“Nobody except for Todd?” Max didn’t know Todd well, they’d only met in passing. He was about a year older, kind of grumpy but mostly quiet, and he did whatever Derek told him, apparently including suck people’s dicks. It was a bit at odds with how nice Derek seemed.

Derek nodded grimly. “He has to. He’s being punished for something and I had to come up with something that wouldn’t hurt him too badly or else the king will torture him.”

“T-torture?” Max asked, frowning. That sounded…bad. “What did he do? Would…would the king really torture someone?”

“To someone he thinks deserves it, yes,” Derek said with another nod. “Todd tried to hurt him about a month ago. He’s only still alive because I told the king I’d punish him. If I hadn’t I’m sure the king would have done something even worse than we already have.” 

“That’s terrible,” Max muttered, sucking in some air. “I…I didn’t realize he was so terrible.” He’d seemed…not nice, but just a little grumpy, at best. 

“The king?” Derek asked, with a shrug. “He’s not, really, as long as you don’t make him mad. He’s doing good things for Ech’kent. And you should see him hold his baby sister.” 

“He killed everyone in Endlyn, though.” Even if he did love the baby that Max had heard about, that didn’t change that he’d destroyed Gino’s hometown. 

Derek looked away, looking upset. “I know. I wish he hadn’t. But he had to.” 

“No he didn’t,” Max said, shaking his head. “He’s…he’s lying about that. The people in Endlyn didn’t kill their own kids, Derek. That’s not true.” That was what the king was telling everyone—that Sean and Sawyer and Gino’s parents had killed all their kids to prevent the king from taking the hostage. But that wasn’t what had happened. 

Derek’s upset faded, turned into something a little clearer. “What do you mean?”

“Just that…” Max wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what he knew. “Just that I know, or knew people from Endlyn. They wouldn’t do that.” 

“Mm,” Derek agreed, his hand on Max’s elbow suddenly. “People do things you wouldn’t expect when they’re scared,” he said. “Trust me, I know. Where were you going? I can walk you there to make sure nobody else bothers you.” 

That was nice of him. Max smiled. “I wasn’t going anywhere. Just taking a walk.” 

“That’s really dangerous, Max,” Derek said, smiling. “I can only do so much. Not everyone in the castle is as easy to scare away as Quint. What if the Sea King had been the one who’d started harassing you? Or Scott? You don’t want his attention, trust me. It’s better just to stay in the servants’ quarters when you’re not working.” 

“I know, I know,” Max said. He did know that. But he wasn’t going to learn anything in the servants’ quarters. “But I just get bored in there. Besides, I thought you said Scott can’t hurt anyone because the king told him not to.” 

“That’s true, but all that really means is that he can’t get caught.” Derek shrugged. “He only listens because if the king catches him not listening he’ll get sent back to hell. He’d probably kill the king if he could.” 

Hm. That was interesting. “I think a lot of people would kill the king if they could.” 

“I hardly blame them,” Derek said, walking alongside Max. He glanced out a window. “But if they try, they’ll probably kill us too even if they don’t mean to. We work for him, so people who think he needs to die probably think we’re evil too.” 

“They know better,” Max insisted. “They know who the good guys are.” 

“Are you sure? You don’t know them. They’d kill Delilah just as soon as Sam.” Derek shook his head, sighing. “Sorry. I’m just thinking about the cathedral in Jdinrma-Hash and how I hear that a group of rebels is taking credit for destroying it. I think anyone who’d blow up a church would kill a servant no problem.” 

Max swallowed. “Not if they knew you didn’t want to be here. You…you don’t want to be here, right?” Derek seemed to nice to want to work for someone evil. 

“Of course not, but I don’t have a choice. My father insulted the king and I got brought here as a punishment. The money I earn goes back to my family in Kasseh. If I run away or something he might try to hurt my sister. I’m just…” Derek paused for a second, looking out another window as they passed it. “I’m just trying to survive here without becoming like everyone else in the castle.” 

“But that would all stop if someone killed the king,” Max said, feeling for Derek. He smiled so much and his life was just as hard as any of theirs. Max understood. He’d made a point of smiling all the time too. It helped. 

“Maybe, but that’s not going to happen, and even if it was, like I said we’d probably die too. Or just end up serving the next king, and he might be just as bad.” 

“What if there wasn’t going to be a king?” Max asked evasively. He wasn’t supposed to say anything. But Derek was one of the king’s personal attendants. If he could convince Derek to join them… “Ech’kent never needed a king before Solomon got here.”

Derek snorted. “Yeah, we had House Arkhewer. The only living member of which is married to the king now.” 

Max scowled. Lord Henry had seemed really nice too. “I meant before them, even. We were fine without them. Back when we just had the dragons to protect us.” 

“Maybe, but we don’t have them anymore,” Derek said. “Now dragons hide in the mountains and only come out to blow up churches.” 

“A church to a foreign god.” 

“A foreign god that people like,” Derek amended. 

“Nobody got hurt. The church was a symbol of oppression.” That was what Cyrus had said, anyway. 

Derek looked at him for a long moment as they walked, and Max was quiet. He’d probably said too much. Crap. After a really long moment, Derek took a breath. “I guess. Anyway, even if there were someone trying to make that happen, I wouldn’t trust them until I’d met them, and there’s no way for me to meet someone like that from here.” 

Max bit his lip. “What if there was a way for you to meet them?” He really hoped this wasn’t a bad idea. But it felt like he and Derek were having a different conversation than the one he could hear. 

“Like I said,” Derek told him. “I’m trying to survive. Without turning into a monster.” 

Max nodded, swallowing, his stomach doing flips. “Come with me.” 

“Where?” Derek asked, following as Max turned down a flight of stairs. 

“The castle backs onto the mountain. There’s a small gate.” 

“I know. It doesn’t lead anywhere. There’s a path and a small plateau, but you can’t get anywhere from there.” 

“Not on foot,” Max said. “Come on.” He led Derek through the castle, out through the servants’ entrance to the back courtyard where the trash and latrines were. As always, the rickety back gate wasn’t guarded, and nobody was around to stop them leaving through it except one guy with his pants down at the latrine. 

The path was precarious but Max had used it a few times now, and he picked his way over it carefully but quickly, holding Derek’s hand to pull him along. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s safe.” Derek hadn’t asked, but he looked worried.

Derek smiled at him. “I know. You wouldn’t lead me here if it wasn’t.” 

That made Max feel so warm he had to look away. “Yeah. You can count on me.” 

“I know,” Derek said, making Max even warmer. He picked up his pace a little bit, dislodging a rock as he went. 

The clearing was about ten more minutes from there, winding around the mountain enough that the castle couldn’t be seen. Max could hear voices as they approached it.

“Should go check on him.” That was Claudius. He sounded worried. Max smiled.

“Calm down, he’s never not come before.” That was Castor.

“Don’t freak out, okay?” Max asked Derek. “They’re friendly, I promise.”

“Who are they?” Derek asked.

Max pulled him around the corner and into the clearing, revealing Castor and Claudius, who both looked over. “Oh,” said Derek.

“Who’s this?” Claudius asked Max. 

“This is, uh…Derek,” Max said, suddenly nervous again. “He’s…”

“I’m the king’s personal attendant,” Derek told Claudius, moving closer, apparently unafraid. “I see him every day. I do his laundry. You’re dragons.” 

“Astute of you. Your friend calls me Claudius, and my eggmate Castor.”

Derek nodded slowly, still getting closer. “So you guys can change shape,” he muttered, looking around. “If you fly low, the mountain hides you from the castle. That’s smart. How many of you are there?”

“Three,” Max told him. He was kind of glad Cassius wasn’t here. Cassius was a bit of a jerk. 

“Just the three of you? That’s not enough.”

“No, I mean three dragons. And then there’s me and my friends.” 

“Hm,” Derek said, nodding along. “And you’re planning to kill the king.”

“And return Ech’kent to the right hands!” Max agreed, grinning now. “It’s going to be so much better to live here when we’re done.” Max believed that. Even if he thought Sam was nice, being self-governed would make Ech’kent a better place to live.

“Yeah,” Derek said. “So, you need help from someone close to the king?”

“Hold on,” Castor said, glaring at Derek, arms crossed. “Who said we want this human’s help? You don’t know him, and he works for your enemy. He’s more likely to betray you than help you.”

Derek returned his glare with an unimpressed look. “And why does anyone trust you to care about the political situation in Ech’kent, exactly?”

Castor growled quietly, and Max stepped forward. “Derek, don’t. They’re dragons, you can’t talk to them like that. They’re going to help us, they’ve always protected the people of Ech’kent.” 

Derek smiled at Max, removed his hand from his shoulder. “So they were protecting us when they let Solomon take over the plateau?” 

Max blinked, not having an answer to that. But while he was not answering, Castor’s growl got louder and he snapped forward, arm flying out and grabbing Derek by the neck, lifting him up. “I don’t like your attitude.” 

Derek had one hand on Castor’s wrist, trying to break free. “Wait, Castor!” Max didn’t want Castor to hurt Derek, he was the only nice person in the castle. He was the only person in the castle who might help them. This was all his fault, it was…

Derek’s other hand came up fluidly as if he weren’t being choked, and Castor let out a scream as a knife lodged in his forearm, and he let Derek go. “You fucking…”

Derek landed on his feet and ducked under the reach of Castor’s other hand, slipping behind him, under a wing. Max couldn’t see what he did but suddenly he was there, over Castor’s shoulder, on his back, his knife at Castor’s throat. “I don’t like yours either,” he said calmly. 

“Derek!” Max took a step forward. This was going to badly. It was all his fault, fuck…

“It’s okay,” Derek said, glancing at Max before his eyes moved to Claudius, whose tail was twitching. “I deal with people scarier than these two every day, Max. Now, do you want my help to kill the king or not?”

“And just what help can you actually offer?” Claudius asked. 

Derek gave him a look. “I know everything about the castle and the people living inside it, how’s that for a start?”

“I guess it’ll do,” Claudius said, nodding. 

“Good. Now, I’m going to let you go and you’re not going to do anything stupid, right, Castor?” Derek asked nicely, patting Castor’s cheek with is free hand. “We’re all on the same side now.” 

Castor growled at him, but averted his eyes. “A fake claw doesn’t make you strong, human.” 

“I guess, but real ones didn’t help you much.” Derek loosened his grip, slid down Castor’s back and came around under his wing, stepping over his tail. “I like your wings, by the way. Green’s my favourite colour.” 

Castor snapped his arm out again, lunging at Derek’s face. Derek didn’t move, or even blink, and Castor’s arm stopped just in front of his neck. “Heh,” Castor said. “I like you.” 

“Most people do,” Derek told him, standing beside Max. “I think it’s my personality.” 

“Holy crap,” Max said, wanting so badly to hug Derek. His heart was pounding. “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. And the coolest. And the stupidest, what is wrong with you?” 

“Too many people bully me,” Derek said. “I don’t need more, that’s all. Now, what do you want to know?”

“Well…”

“There are other matters to attend before we talk,” Claudius said, pulling Max a little closer. “Explain our arrangement to your friend.” 

Max nodded, suddenly embarrassed. This had never bothered him with Gino and the others. “The dragons help us,” he explained to Derek. “And all they want in exchange is…well, we have to have sex with them.” 

Derek looked at him, frowning. What was he going to think of Max now? Maybe he’d change his mind about helping. Max would understand, he’d had to think hard about whether or not to…

Derek sighed. “Well, why didn’t you just say that from the start? I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I’d known that ten minutes ago.” 

Max blinked. “Are…you sure?” 

Derek shrugged, already taking off his shirt. “You’ve seen what the castle’s like, Max. Come on.” 

“Well…okay,” Max said, Derek’s confidence lending him some. He undressed quickly, sneaking a peek at Derek as he did. Derek was bigger than him, but that was okay. So was everyone else. He was also already getting hard, which Max paused at, but only for a second. Did he actually want to have sex with the dragons?

Max did too, to be fair. He liked Claudius a lot, mostly because Claudius was nice to him and treated him like he was special. So, naked, he turned to Claudius. “I missed you,” he said, truthfully. He liked having Claudius around. It made him feel safer. 

“Me too,” Claudius said, taking Max by the shoulders. “I’ve been so worried about you.” 

Max smiled at him, sliding down and taking Claudius in his hand, stroking him to get him hard. “I’ve been fine. How is everyone else?”

“They’re…ah, they’re fine. People are starting to listen to them when they go to the towns and talk.”

Max nodded, licking Claudius to get him wet. He tasted warm, much warmer than anyone he’d done this for in Jdinrma-Hash. “Lots of people?” he asked, between licks. 

“S-seems like,” Claudius said, panting, hands in Max’s hair. “How many humans is a lot?”

Max shrugged, focusing on Claudius’s head. “Like five hundred?” Five hundred people would be way better than the five who had listened to them last time. 

“Mmm,” Claudius agreed, not saying much else. So Max just kept licking him, then started sucking at his head, pretending that Claudius had been pent up waiting for him for the last three days, even though that definitely wasn’t true. Max would have liked it if it were, if Claudius were so devoted to him that he didn’t want to fuck anyone else, but that was never going to be true, so there was no point in wishing it were. 

Still, he thought, as Claudius came in his mouth a few minutes later, it was nice to pretend. And he could happily pretend that, if nothing else, he was Claudius’s favourite. He swallowed, a lot of it running down his chin, and looked up, smiled.

Claudius smiled back, running a hand through Max’s hair for a second before urging him downwards, backwards. Max moved to his back, and Claudius between his legs, probing at his hole, stretching it open out of respect for the fact that Max hadn’t been fucked since last time he’d been here.

Castor seemed to have shown no such restraint with Derek, already pressing inside him insistently. Derek was gripping him hard, though, moving his hips as if to encourage him to go faster, looking right up at Castor in what even Max knew was a challenge. 

Max got distracted from watching them when Claudius pushed inside, and he had to remember to relax so he’d fit. A few days without this was enough to make him less permanently stretched than he’d been when he’d been staying in the cave, but he was still okay to take Claudius after a few breaths and a few thrusts. 

Max was too distracted to do much else other than lay there and let Claudius do his thing, though he did remember to reach up and grab Claudius’s wrist, not just for support but because he liked holding his dragon when he could. After a minute or so he got used to Claudius again and it stopped hurting, and Max started to enjoy it. 

The first time Max had been fucked it had been an older kid who’d promised him a candy that Max hadn’t ended up getting. The second time had been that kid’s dad, who’d at least paid Max. The few times in between were a bit blurry and Max couldn’t remember most of them until he’d met Cassius and them. Now he’d been fucked like a million times, mostly by dragons, and honestly he’d started to like it. Especially with Claudius—it was always best with him, and Max knew it was because Claudius cared about him, which made it better. 

Claudius always fucked him harder than the other two dragons, and it wasn’t long before he pounded at orgasm right out of Max, who gripped Claudius’s wrist hard as he came with a cry, clenching around the dragon who kept ramming him mercilessly. 

Max lay there for a while, too high to do anything else, and it was several minutes before he remembered that the rest of the clearing existed. “If you’re…going to go again…I’m going to start talking…” a voice was saying. It was Derek. Right, Derek. He was so nice. “I’ve got to get…fuck, back to the castle…”

“You’ll go back when I’m ready,” Castor growled. 

“That’s nice…” Derek let out a sigh. Max looked over and saw him sitting in Castor’s lap now, riding him, though Castor’s hands were guiding him for the most part. “Anyway, if you were planning, fuck, if you were planning to attack the c-castle, don’t. The Sea King is, ah, fuck, is almost as powerful as the king and you’d all d-d-die even without Sc-Scott, fuck, Castor.” 

Castor smirked, leaned back on his hands and just bounced Derek up and down with his hips. If his bleeding arm was bothering him, he didn’t show it. “Something wrong, Derek?”

“You feel real nice. Go a little faster…that’s, fuck, that’s good. Scott is the d-demon who controls, controls all the…centipedes. I, I, I think you should talk to him actually. He lives in the mountain. Rh’eyltakak. If…if you could free him from Sam, he’d…fuck, he’d definitely help you…”

“Your friend is very helpful,” Claudius said in Max’s ear. 

Max nodded. “I…I knew he would be…” 

Whatever else he’d been planning to say was cut off by a growl, and then a hard bite on his collarbone as Claudius came inside him, lifting his hips up to thrust farther in.

When he was done, Claudius panted, sweat on his forehead. He was still solid as a fencepost inside Max, but he’d stopped moving for a moment. “I’m so proud of you,” he said quietly. “I knew you’d be able to do this.” 

Max nodded. “I’m just…doing my best. So we can go away like we promised.” He liked that idea, leaving with Claudius and just living somewhere. It sounded nice.

Claudius grinned, toothy, and he gave a thrust, started to move again. “Like we promised,” he agreed. 

Heart fluttering, Max leaned up and kissed Claudius, who after a moment kissed him back, teeth bumping his as they moved. 

They kept going for a while after that, but even after Claudius grudgingly did the brotherly thing and switched with Castor for one round later, Max could still feel Claudius’s mouth on his. 

And that, combined with Derek holding his hand on the way back, made Max feel like everything was going to be okay.


	8. Lots of Different People Have Cause to Rebel against the Same Tyrant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one of the most challenging, but also most fun things I've ever written. I really, really like how it turned out. Enjoy!

Something big was headed its way. It could feel this only vaguely, vibrations in the air alerting a million feelers. A dragon, coming by air.

Cute. They thought they were so big just because they took up a lot of consecutive space. They were as adorable as they were edible. Going about its business, the demon waited. 

Soon enough, measured in a straight line, anyway, the vibrations got stronger, the air around the mountain displaced in gusts, and then, a more familiar sensation. Feet touching the ground, moving forward, one after the other after the other. Two pairs. The dragon must be one of those little lab experiments that could take up less consecutive space when it wanted to. The other was a human.

The demon scurried around, clearing itself off the surface the two would be stomping on once they opened the door to what had once been a monastery. It climbed walls, entered holes, clung to every surface it could. Outside that small space, in the other rooms, the old library, the sleeping cells, the kitchen, the crypt, the caves, the many places nowhere near the mountain where the dragon approached, all repurposed as breeding grounds now, the demon merely waited. 

Demon was such a hard word, invented by humans. But then, all words were invented by some consecutive entity. They made worlds out of languages because they couldn’t make them out of anything real and couldn’t communicate in anything else. And that was why the demon, who was a cosmic truth, a metaphysical reality more concrete than any consecutive being could possibly comprehend with a brain that only existed once, the principle of consumption in corporeal intrusion upon a universe made from ideas, the promise of hunger in a cosmos that would one day, inevitably, eat itself, was increasingly called Scott by various humans. 

That was fine. As amusing as their brains melting when it tried to make itself truly comprehensible was, sometimes even an unfathomably simple creature like a human could carry on a fun conversation. 

The stone doors swung open, bringing the human and the dragon into the demon’s realm—at least in their minds. They’d been spawned, lived and would die in the demon’s realm and it wasn’t their fault they didn’t know that. They were only food, after all. Footfalls vibrated through the stone, and the air wiggled with the endless attempts at cosmogenesis that accompanied consecutive beings. 

“Where is this creature?” The vibrations rumbled over Scott’s feelers. A tail swished on the floor, messing up the art Scott had been making there. Inconsiderate piece of filth. “All I see are a myriad of insects.”

“According to Castor, the myriad of insects are the creature,” the human said, vibrating at a higher frequency. 

“How are we to negotiate with a roomful of vermin who can do nothing but eat?”

Oh, _that_ was cute. Scott felt mirth through its corpus, and he clicked its mandibles—all of them, filling the room with it. The two creatures stopped moving, and parts of Scott skittered up and down from walls and ceilings and holes and collected in front of them. If they wanted to talk to it, it was only fair for it to come down to their level. That was why it had learned to use language, after all. 

So Scott climbed on itself, crawled and scampered and bit and chewed and tangled, changing, just in this room, the universe’s idea of what its corporeality was. Humans, Scott had discovered, were more comfortable speaking to something that resembled them. So Scott made itself resemble them, the rest of it attending to the way both of them distanced themselves from its newly emerging form, as if that didn’t just bring them closer to the rest of it. Consecutive beings were stupid like that. It wasn’t their fault. Their cognition was trapped inside a linear brain. 

“Hey there,” Scott said to them, its new ideation imitating human vocality. “Looking for me, are we? That’s a stupid idea. It’s a good way to get eaten. I haven’t eaten in the last few seconds.” 

“We’re here to talk to you,” the human said, vibrations stronger. The pump- _pump_ of its heart picking up in frequency. “To negotiate with you.”

“To negotiate?” Scott asked, a few of it on the wall clicking in amusement. Scott dropped off the ceiling, landing on the human’s shoulder, smelling sweat. The human didn’t push it off, letting it skitter across tense muscles, gently consuming some dead skin. “Only enemies negotiate. Are we enemies?”

“Well, yes, actually.” 

“Oh,” Scott said, laughing. It liked laughter, it was something good that consecutive beings had invented. Having a human-like body made laughing possible in a way that humans understood, so they understood what human emotion it was faking. “Then I guess I’ll eat you, then.” All around the two, Scott reared its heads, as if to attack. 

“W-wait!” the human cried. “We don’t want to be enemies!”

“Calm down, Cyrus,” the dragon ordered, expecting to be obeyed. “The creature is only posturing. If it wanted to attack us it would have done so without warning.” 

“Aww, buzzkill,” Scott said to the dragon. “I mean you’re right, I’m only fucking with you. But you could at least be scared.” Fear was an emotion that really added metaphysical flavour to Scott’s food. 

“Dragons don’t…”

“Give a shit about human neurotic tendencies, I know,” Scott said, making its linear face smile. “So what do you want? Let’s negotiate. Oh, but you can’t have this mountain, I’m almost done decorating it the way I like, so don’t even ask.” 

“We have,” the dragon told it, “our own mountain.” It was so full of its tiny self that Scott wanted to laugh again, but this time it approximated it with its real mouths, clicking everywhere. “What we want from you is your aid in defeating the Sorcerer King.” 

Laughter was a versatile action. Scott giggled this time. “You’re a pair of dumbasses if you think I’m going to help you with that. You know Sammy and I are friends, right?” As far as food went, Scott liked the human called Samson Arkhewer of Clan Netzer, Sorcerer King and Lord-Consort to Ech’kent. 

“We are aware of your alliance,” the dragon said. “You are enslaved to the Sorcerer King.” 

Scott thought for a second. Not about these two; its cognition was capacious enough to have swallowed both of them the moment they walked into the monastery. It was actually thinking about the crypt in Three Hills, which was getting a bit small now that it was pretending to be trapped there, and the small clan of centaurs who’d tried to kill it yesterday. And about a human named Derek, Scott had been thinking about the human named Derek occasionally lately. “You guys are the ones who blew up the big glove in Jdinrma-Hash, right?”

“The…”

“We destroyed the cathedral, yes,” the dragon interrupted.

“I helped build that, you know,” Scott complained. “Lots of work went into that. I’d always planned to have a nice lunch there someday.” Oh well. “You two are in charge of the rebellion against poor Sammy? I’m not talking to someone who’s not the boss.” 

The two turned to one another for a moment while Scott thought about all the many consecutive beings arrayed against poor Sammy. But then, all good human stories seemed to have a hero facing down a numerically superior and more powerful enemy, and humans used stories to build what they thought was their world, so it was probably nothing to worry about. Good always triumphed over evil in the end—whatever that meant.

“We’re in charge,” the human named Cyrus said. Scott liked it. Out of all its siblings, it was the one who Scott had met who seemed the most sensible so far. If only because it had let Scott crawl on it without complaining. “Cassius and I are leading the resistance.” 

“Good,” said Scott, feeling out the increased pump- _pump_ of Cyrus’s heart. “Fine, I’ll talk to whichever of you’s the big boss, then. Come in here.” Scott’s linear self ambled towards a door that led to another room. 

Cassius the dragon followed it. “Wait here,” it said to Cyrus. “I shall return presently. The creature will not hurt you.”

Scott clicked again, but in another city. Its human-shaped form vanished into the other room and Cassius came with it, and the door swung shut behind them. “Okay,” Scott said to Cyrus, forming up another linear piece of meat for it to feel comfortable talking with. “Now that he’s gone, let’s talk. So,” it said to Cassius, turning its body to face the dragon. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Me?” Cyrus asked, turning to back away from Scott again. “I…I thought you were talking to Cassius.” 

“I am,” Scott told it with a smile. “To make him feel better. We both know you’re calling the shots. Tell me what you’re offering.” 

“The human called the Sorcerer King is a menace to other humans,” Cassius said to Scott. “You are his most powerful ally. He has enslaved you—if you help us kill him, you will no longer be enslaved.” 

“I’m not offering you anything,” Cyrus said. “I want you to leave Ech’kent permanently.”

“But I like it here. Enslaved is such a strong word, Stringy. We’re friends, Sammy and I. If I leave your little bundle of paradise, where am I going to go?” 

“Wherever you want. Just not here. You’re not allowed to go where you want now, are you?”

“I don’t believe a creature such as you understands the concept of friendship. You would devour him in an instant if your contract didn’t forbid it.” 

Scott gave two smiles. It crawled over Cyrus’s feet, up to its ankles. And Cassius’s tail, though that got it swished away annoyedly. “So you know about the little contract I have, huh? I guess Princey must have told you after all.” Scott would have to have another series of words with the human who was rapidly becoming one of his favourites. Derek had neglected to mention that part to Scott. Tricky, clever, wriggly little dessert, Derek was. “That means I have to do what Sammy says. I can’t fight him even if I want to.” 

“We’re going to kill him,” Cyrus said, chest rising as Scott climbed up its quivering legs. “Once he’s dead your contract will default to his sister and she’s a baby.” 

“He will be dead within the month.” Cassius growled when Scott fell from the ceiling to land on its horn. “And you will be free. You need not disobey his orders.” 

“His contract doesn’t cover his allies, right?” Cyrus asked. “He never said you had to protect them or even that you couldn’t hurt them.” 

“Go on, don’t mind me. Now that you mention it, no, it doesn’t, actually.” Scott climbed up to Cyrus’s back, nibbling, enjoying the sensation of Cyrus’s shudder. 

Removing Scott from his hair, Cassius said, “You can simply stand down—don’t defend the castle at a critical moment. Simply stay here while we attack it.” 

“So you can attack his allies. That would cause chaos in the castle and give us enough of an opening to do what we have to do,” Cyrus concluded. “And then we’ll kill the king, and in exchange you’ll leave the plateau.” 

“And in exchange for that, I’ll get my freedom? You know that’s not what your boyfriend is saying to me in the other room?” Scott moved its linear body closer to both of them as it spoke. 

“Yes. A simple arrangement.” 

“I know,” Cyrus said, pump- _pump_ rising. “Because he’s saying what I told him to say.” 

“Heh. Okay then, you got yourself a deal. I see how it is,” Scott said, wrapping its human arms around Cyrus from behind. It ran a finger down Cassius’s chest. “Let’s seal it. I think you know what you’re pretending not to know, Playboy.” 

“How could I pretend not to know it…”

“What must be done to seal it?”

“If I didn’t know it?” 

Scott turned around, bend over just above the hip. Its form became just slightly less consecutive, enough that Cyrus would feel feelers and mandibles all up its back to its head. And Cyrus could definitely feel Scott’s head poking around where so many dicks had gone before, parting it easily and crawling inside into the warmth. “I like you. This is how you make deals with your humans, right? Let’s have us a nice old-fashioned linear fuck like the metaphors you are.” 

“And then our deal will be made?” 

“Do we have a deal…or not?”

“Heh. Hold still and we’ll find out.” Scott whispered, vibrating elsewhere to allow sound in the air around Cyrus. “Yes it will. Make with the dicking.” 

“Very well.” 

“Okay, do what you want.” 

Cassius stepped forward, grabbing its dick and shaking it until it was hard. Scott wondered if it was thinking of its boyfriend in the other room. Probably. And it while wandered around Cyrus’s whole body, eating just small bits of it and exploring deeper inside it, Cassius rammed its cute little cock inside the orifice Scott had provided, letting out an adorable little vibration when Scott grabbed its cock with a hundred pincers to keep it inside, but not deterred from thrusting. 

Scott crawled up Cyrus’s dick and nibbled at the skin on top, then at the swelling head, wandering around the balls and everything else Cyrus had, getting a good sense of it, its shape, its texture. Another head poked around Cyrus’s hole, heading inside as the first went deeper, drawing sharp intakes of breath out of the human. Scott wandered into its mouth too, just out of curiosity. 

Unfortunately for Cyrus, Scott’s contract with Sammy forbade it laying any eggs in a person without permission, and also from being inside a person without permission. But Scott considered itself to be inside someone only if all of a part of it was inside, so as long as part of the exploratory body remained on the outside, that was fine. Scott’s ideas were very long. 

Scott explored Cassius too, but only externally, interested especially in the scales on its wings and tail. It kept swishing and flexing those irritably, but Scott ignored that and kept wandering around, enjoying itself. 

The concept of an orgasm was one Scott found fascinating. The reproductive drive in consecutive beings wasn’t strong enough on its own, it needed an attendant rush of seasoning to make sure it was carried out. But then that rush could be brought about by any stimulus, like a centipede gnawing the tasty bits. 

Cyrus’s orgasm was a surprise to Scott even though it knew all the physiological signs of it, because it’d known very few humans who sexually enjoyed being covered in Scott. But there it was, spilling its reproductive energies onto the floor of the monastery. Scott chased after those, gobbling them down in a swarm. Then it retreated from inside the panting Cyrus, holding it up with its arms. “Okay,” Scott said. “We got a deal.” 

Cassius’s orgasm came just after that if one measured time in a line, a rumble in the air as it shot wasted procreative power into a body that was just a nest, the seed consumed almost as soon as it left the dragon’s body. Cassius wrenched its dick out of Scott, shaking Scott off him. Scott formed its linear body again, facing the dragon. “There you go. Deal made, Stringy.”

“Very well.” Cassius inhaled very different air from that which Cyrus was sucking in. “I will take my leave now. You’d better not have hurt Cyrus.” 

“Th-thank you,” Cyrus was saying, catching its breath, if breath could be caught. 

Scott smiled. “Not a scratch on him. Now get out of my house before I eat you. Come back any time you want to do that again.” 

“No offence, but that’s never.” 

“And here I thought we were friends now.” 

Cassius flicked its tail, scattering Scott from picking at it, and turned towards the door, striding out into the main room. The two met in the middle, touching each other. “Are you okay? Did it hurt you?”

“No, no, I’m fine. Can we, can we go? I’ll explain after.” 

“Very well. Let us be rid of this place.” 

“I _really_ want a bath. For a year.” 

“As do I.”

And the left, leaving the doors open, which Scott had heard was rude. But Scott shut them, linear body collapsing. Now that had been fun. And had the promise to be even more fun in the near future. It wished it could have visitors more often—Sammy never let Scott talk to anyone. 

Soon, though. Scott began the process of rearranging all the art that they’d messed up with their consecutive everything, considering which centaur to make a meal of and exactly how many times it should call Derek smart and how quickly it could get back to Hawk’s Roost and a million other things. Successful or not, this rebellion was a small thing. The world, the world was a big thing. 

And Scott was bigger.


	9. You Don't Have to Be A Liar to Be A Rebel, but it Helps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really happy with how the last chapter went over, and I think you guys will find this one pretty fun too! :D

A year ago, the preferred amount of cock inside Derek’s ass would have been zero. 

But puberty was even crazier than his dad had warned him it was going to be. Aside from weird dreams, strange things happening to his body and noticing people in ways he hadn’t before, there had also been getting kidnapped and forced to work for the Sorcerer King and getting raped repeatedly. Dad had talked about kissing girls and playing touching games with his friends, but he’d never mentioned the getting fucked by kings, lords, people his own age, guards, centipedes and dragons. 

He had mentioned that Derek would probably start getting crushes on people, which at least had been true. And he’d been right about body hair. He was happy with the hair that had been sprouting around his dick and under his arms lately. 

But now Derek’s dad had no tongue and Derek was here, navigating puberty on his own and he thought he was doing pretty okay. He’d figured out the getting fucked in the ass thing on his own, even if his dad hadn’t been much help there. If Derek ever had a son he’d make sure to mention all the butt stuff that puberty entailed, because it was actually a lot.

Fortunately, Derek had learned to like it. He hadn’t at first, it had hurt and it had seemed like the whole point of it was just to hurt, but after a while—it had been his first time with the king, actually—Derek had realized that it didn’t _have_ to hurt, even if it did. His first time with Henry had been the first time Derek actually had enjoyed it, and that had opened up a whole new world and also taught him three important things.

The first was that when he stopped being a crybaby about it, sex was a good way to get things out of people. 

The second was that when it didn’t hurt, Derek actually liked getting fucked.

And the third was that with cocks that were going to go inside him, bigger was better. 

Puberty had gotten a lot easier and a _lot_ more fun after he’d learned those things. 

Derek clenched around Castor, kissing Max harder as he felt himself start to reach his orgasm again. He was squished up against Max, with Castor and Claudius fucking them both. They’d been at it for a while now, and before that Derek had been fucked by the bigger dragon called Cassius, who seemed to be in charge by virtue of being the biggest. All Derek had been able to think was that dragons had a funny way of doing things, picturing Henry towering over Sam. 

But then, Sam wasn’t really in charge, so maybe dragons weren’t that far off the mark. 

Either way, Derek had been being fucked for over a solid hour now, and he kind of needed to get back to work. But it seemed like the guys in this little rebellion Max had introduced him to worked on their hormones before their plans. 

Which might be why they had so much stamina and had terrible plans. But anyway. 

Derek came against Max again, teeth clacking as they kissed, their noises mixing. A minute or so later Castor growled and bit Derek, cumming inside him for the fourth time before finally letting go of Derek and pulling out. He turned Derek around, smiling awkwardly, and kissed him. Derek kissed back, wondering how he’d managed to get a dragon with a crush on him. Maybe it had been when he’d threatened to slit his throat. Then he stepped back, smiling up at Castor. “Thanks.”

Castor nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “I wish you didn’t have to stay here. It’s not safe.”

Not for some people, maybe. “I’m perfectly safe here, Castor. Besides, you guys are coming to get me and Max in a few days, right?”

“Four days from now,” Cassius said, from the side. He’d been fucking his own guy, a weird-looking foreigner named Cyrus, who, to Derek, was pretty clearly in charge. “We will attack. The creature called Scott will be absent from the castle. Castor and Claudius will attack the castle while I sneak in with Cyrus and his friends in order to distract the Sorcerer King’s allies. You will have ensured that they will meet no resistance, and Max will lead them to the king. I will ensure he cannot harm them with magic and they will kill him and his ally Henry. Clear?”

“Clear,” Derek said, nodding. “The king will likely be in the throne room. Max knows where it is. I’ll have the guards go outside the castle—I’ll convince them that the attack means a ground army is coming to back you up thanks to all that support you’ve been getting lately.” After they’d blown up a church and terrified everyone, Derek thought. “What are you going to do if Scott appears?” 

“He will not.” 

Derek nodded. “Okay. I should go back to the castle before anyone notices I’m missing. I’ll see you in four days.”

Cassius nodded, and Derek turned away, patting Castor on the cheek and waving at Max, who was laying down with Claudius inside him now. Castor followed him a few steps. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Starting to worry that you’re more interested in me than the rebellion,” said Derek, who knew that to be true. 

Castor shrugged. “Don’t care about the rebellion. I like you.”

No kidding. What did dragons care about politics? “You haven’t known me that long.”

“Don’t need to know you that long.” 

“Careful,” Derek said, chuckling. “With that attitude I’ll start asking you to do stuff for me.”

“Ask. I’ll do it.” 

Derek wondered. But for now he just smiled, kissed Castor one last time. “See you in a few days. Don’t forget about me.” From what Max had said, Claudius had been the same with him, and apparently Cassius was just as devoted to Cyrus. It didn’t seem to take dragons long to fall in love. 

“I won’t.”

Derek nodded and headed away. He didn’t even get all the way to his clothes before arms wrapped around him. “I didn’t get a turn,” Cyrus said, voice carrying a bit. His boner was pressing against Derek’s butt. 

Derek snorted. They didn’t know each other that well, but when had Derek ever needed to know anyone to get fucked by them? “Go ahead,” he said, spreading his legs a little as he stood. Cyrus hadn’t really come off as the type to suddenly insist on this.

Cyrus nodded, pressing inside easily, chin on Derek’s shoulder. He wasn’t very big, at least compared to the dragons—he was a perfectly normal sized human—so he slid in without trouble, just fucking Derek standing, hips moving back and forth. He kept his arms wrapped around Derek as he did, his chin on Derek. 

Derek tried to enjoy it, but mostly he just waited for Cyrus to be done so he could get dressed and get back to work. He had to make sure the dungeons got cleaned out properly, check the food supply before the merchants came tomorrow, find Todd and make sure he wasn’t slacking, make sure the king didn’t need anything, check the…

“Scott isn’t going to be absent from the castle the day of the attack,” Cyrus murmured, so quiet that Derek almost didn’t hear him over the sound of Max getting it from Claudius and Castor in either end.

“Where’s he going to be?” Derek asked, curious about why this was a secret. But then, leaders kept secrets. 

“Attacking the king’s allies. His contract doesn’t prohibit…prohibit him from attacking them. Only him and his family.” 

“Mm,” Derek agreed. “Why…why is this a secret?”

“Because they think that having him as an ally is distasteful. I think it’s useful.” Cyrus kissed Derek’s neck. “One other thing.”

“What?”

“The stone the king uses.”

Derek went a little stiff, but Cyrus didn’t stop moving. That was…interesting. “How do you know about that?”

“Max.”

“Liar. Max doesn’t know about it.” Derek was sure of that. Very few people knew of it. 

“I just know,” Cyrus said, giving a hard thrust. “Going to cum in a minute. Will the king have it with him?”

“Yeah,” Derek said. Sam always had it with him. 

“Okay. Do you know where the baby will be?”

Now Derek frowned. “I’m not letting you hurt the baby.” She was just a baby. And then he thought about it a second longer. “And if you think Sam will trade the baby for the stone, you’re an idiot.”

Cyrus gave a quiet moan and started to cum, adding to all the mess that was running down Derek’s legs. Then, he just stood there a second, holding Derek, rocking him back and forth. “I’m not going to hurt the baby. But she’s not safe in the castle and she’s the only one who can control Scott once the king is dead.”

Hm. Derek nodded. “I’ll take you to her during the fighting.”

“Thank you,” Cyrus said, pulling out and patting Derek on the butt. “See you,” he said, louder, and headed back to Cassius. 

Shaking his head, Derek scooped up his clothes, not putting them on yet because they’d get dirty if he did, and headed away from the little plateau the dragons liked to land on. He turned the corner, patting as he went a centipede nestled innocuously between two rocks. It skittered up the rock, onto his hand, and ran up his arm, across his shoulder, up his face, nestling in his hair, hanging down to Derek’s ear. Derek giggled. “That tickles,” he said.

_I haven’t tickled nothing yet_ , Scott said in his ear, or probably more accurately in his head. As he said it, half a dozen more centipedes emerged from Derek’s clothing, wiggling all around as they made for his legs, his chest, and started eating all the cum that was all over Derek, one even went to his dick and wrapped around that to get the cum coating it. One went to the bites on his neck and nibbled at the blood. _Funny group, aren’t they?_

“Yeah, they are,” Derek agreed, trying to keep his giggles under control as he walked. “You have to fuck them for an hour before they’ll talk to you for two seconds.” 

_Dragons are just like that_ , Scott told him, still crawling all over Derek. _But it’s a good look for you._

Derek just snorted. “So why do Cyrus and Cassius not think the same thing about what you’re doing? Did you lie to one of them or is one of them lying to me?” Derek didn’t like it much when people lied to him. It wasn’t a very nice thing to do, especially from someone who wanted help. 

Scott clicked in a way that Derek knew meant he was laughing. They’d been talking a lot since Sam had let Scott hide in his clothes to visit James, and since Max had introduced Derek to the dragons. _I lied to both of them, Princey_ , he said. _And they’re both lying to you._

Derek nodded. “Are they lying to each other too?” He wouldn’t be surprised.

_Why is that even a question? What even is a question?_ As Scott spoke, he was crawling up Derek’s legs, the centipede that had been nipping at his bites skittering down to help, resting on his buttcheek, feeling out his hole. _Be kind of out of character if they weren’t, wouldn’t it?_

“I don’t know, would it?” Derek asked, stopping and leaning on a hand against the rock wall when Scott wriggled his way inside Derek in search of food. A second centipede wandered up, circling the hole as well and getting all the cum that was dripping out of it.

_I don’t know, human characters don’t make much sense to us higher entities._

“Hm,” Derek said, gasping a little as Scott wormed deeper into him, nuzzling his prostate. “Do all higher entities like to eat cum out of people’s assholes?”

Scott bit Derek’s prostate now, making him yelp as he chittered laughter in Derek’s ear. _Only the fun ones, kid._

“D-do that again,” Derek said, clenching around Scott. The first time he’d worried doing that might hurt Scott, but Scott had just laughed at the prospect. 

_Don’t know. What are you going to give me in exchange?_

“I’ll probably cum again,” Derek said, honest. 

_Kinky fucker._ Scott sounded fond. _Let me sleep in your bed tonight._

Derek smiled. “You don’t sleep.” 

_Don’t pay so much attention to words. Parts of me rest._

“You’re the one who says the world is built out of words,” Derek teased. “Fine, a few of you can rest in my bed tonight. Only the parts of you on me right now, though. And no complaining if I roll over and squish you.” 

Being precise was very important with Scott. 

_You won’t. Who taught you to be so on the ball, kid?_ He bit Derek’s prostate again, and the second centipede that had been circling also worked its way inside his hole now, filling Derek nicely. Scott could be thicker and longer than even Cassius, when he wanted to be. 

Derek giggled again, enjoying the feeling. “Henry. Sam. You. I don’t want you claiming I agreed to let you eat me because I wasn’t…ah, careful.” 

_Aw, you know I’d never do that, Princey. I like you too much._ Another bite. The centipede around his dick was moving a lot too. Derek was going to shoot in a minute. 

“You won’t e-eat me?” Now that was out of character. Wanting to eat stuff was three-quarters of Scott’s personality. 

_Heh. Of course I will. But not until you’re ready._

Derek came, bracing himself against the rock as he did. It hurt a little, since he’d shot so many times in the last hour, his balls contracting as he did. He didn’t shoot much, but Scott all but jumped off his dick to get to it, the rest of him pulling out from Derek, continuing to crawl on him, not finding much else to eat. There was no more cum on him. 

Panting a little, Derek got dressed shakily, smiling to himself. He actually liked Scott. He knew he was alone in that, but he did. Scott didn’t pretend not to be what he was, and he didn’t lie, because he didn’t need to. And he was funny. Derek couldn’t bring himself to be afraid of him even though he was terrifying, and it had taken him a day or two to realize why. Scott was predictable, just like Sam and Henry were. And it was hard to be afraid of someone predictable. 

And Derek liked him. His dad had told him about crushes, but he’d only mentioned boys and girls. He never said anything about evil gloms of centipede monster from hell. But there it was.

The centipedes stayed pretty still after Derek got dressed, just clinging to his skin. Derek headed back into the castle, feeling better once he was there. It felt safe to him, strangely. His home, as much as he hadn’t asked for it. 

_So, you going to talk to Sammy yet?_ Scott asked. 

“Yeah,” Derek muttered. “Tomorrow. I don’t think I’m up to get fucked again.” And that was always a possibility, plus he had to decide exactly what to say. 

“Hey, hey,” Max’s voice called, before Derek could say anything else to Scott. He caught up, dressed sloppily but a complete mess, hair disheveled and cum on his face. “Sorry, Claudius wanted another go.” 

Derek smiled. “Not a problem. Gave me time to clean up. You should have a bath.” 

Max snickered. “Yeah. If anyone asks I’ll just tell them I had to entertain some guards.” 

“Yeah,” Derek agreed. It was believable enough. Too many of the guards were gross in the castle. Derek was working on nudging a few of them out, with Henry’s help. It was one thing for them to fuck Todd—that was his job, entertaining them—but they couldn’t be allowed to just go around raping whoever they wanted. “Go on.” 

Max nodded, looking around nervously. “It’s…exciting, right? How soon it is.” 

“Yeah,” Derek said. “It’s going to be really something.” 

“Yeah…” They walked alongside each other, Derek glancing a guard who looked like he might come over and bother Max. He turned around. “It’s…it’ll be good for Ech’kent not to have a foreign king,” he said. 

Would it? “You don’t sound super convinced,” Derek risked. Max may have snuck in here to spy on the king, but he sure didn’t seem the most invested in the idea. 

“I, I am,” Max said, biting his lip. “It’s for the good of Ech’kent. The king is evil.” 

“Did Cyrus tell you that?” Scott was laughing in Derek’s ear again. 

“Well…” Max shifted a little. “He killed everyone in Endlyn.” 

“Yeah,” Derek said. He wished Sam hadn’t done that. It had been a mistake. They could have killed all the adults, or all the children, but not both. It had been stupid. “They were destabilizing the plateau, weren’t they, though? I mean, Sam does stuff sometimes that’s not so great, but he’s trying to keep it stable. He’s…he’s not blowing up cathedrals.” 

Max flinched. “That wasn’t…nobody got hurt.” 

“Forty-three people died, Max,” Derek said, as if distressed. 

“Wh…” Max stopped walking, turning to face Derek. “What?” He sounded legitimately stricken. 

“Max…you didn’t think you could do this without hurting anyone, did you?” Derek asked. “You can’t make the kind of change you guys are looking for without hurting someone. People are going to die when you attack the castle too, you know that, right?” 

Max’s eyes were watering suddenly, and he wavered. “N-nobody was in the…nobody was supposed to be in the cathedral…” 

“Did Cyrus tell you that?” 

Derek saw it, saw Max go still, saw pieces fall into place. “Oh, my God,” he whispered.

Derek took his hand. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s for the good of Ech’kent, right?” 

“I…” Max nodded, looking distressed. Derek felt kind of bad. That had been really easy. “I just want to help Ech’kent…”

“Me too,” Derek said. “We all want what’s best for Ech’kent. Why don’t I go with you and have a bath? We’ll talk. I didn’t mean to upset you, Max.” 

“No, I…” Max took a breath, let Derek guide him into the castle while Scott gripped the inside of Derek’s clothes instead of his skin. He was also nestled in Derek’s hair now, not easily visible. “M-my friends. Gino and Sean and Sawyer…”

“I’m sure we can find a way to keep them safe,” Derek promised, smiling openly. “Come on. Let’s see what we can figure out.” 

Max nodded, sniffing, and Derek led him to the baths. As he went, Scott scurried down and nibble his ear. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Derek just smiled. 

Sorry, dad. He thought he was handling puberty just fine. He thought he was handling most things just fine.


	10. Rebelling Against the Throne Means Being Willing to Do Whatever it Takes, Even if You Lose A Few Friends Along the Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the final chapter of this story! This isn't quite the end, though--this is the last chapter in the narrative, but there's going to be a short epilogue as well, which will be posted next update. The epilogue is going to be more for readers of the whole series, whereas this chapter is the conclusion of this story in particular. I hope you all enjoy, and thank you for reading about our favourite rebels!

Cassius stood with his arms crossed, surveying his humans. Well, four of them, anyway. Cyrus was on his knees, sucking Cassius’s cock. Sawyer and Sean were facing each other, being fucked by Claudius and Castor respectively. Gino was between them, one siremate in his ass and one in his mouth. Derek and Max were in the castle for now. 

Standing perfectly still and letting Cyrus do the work, Cassius surveyed the building called a castle, or the parts of it he could see from here. Cassius had to admit, from this angle he could see why a small thing like a human might find it intimidating. 

He was not intimidated. 

Cassius came deep in Cyrus’s throat and let his human pull off. He patted Cyrus’s hair as he stood. He had not anticipated that he would end up being this attached to one of the humans, but Cassius was not complaining. Cyrus made everything worth it, including the trouble he was already in with the matriarch and would soon be even deeper in. He didn’t care. He wasn’t going to let them take Cyrus from him. None of the others either, but Cyrus especially. He would do anything to keep Cyrus.

Neither of his siremates was fucking the human they’d prefer, Cassius knew that. As he watched them cum inside Sawyer and Sean, he decided that he’d give them Max and Derek after this was all over. They wanted them anyway and giving them up would save him a fight later that he’d win, and would remind them both that he was the one with the power to give and take away. 

And it would make his siremates happy. Something he’d learned from the humans was that that wasn’t nothing. 

Cassius waited for Sawyer and Sean to finish with Gino, and the humans to collect themselves and start covering up. Cyrus had told them it was better to do that in the castle, the better to get people to listen to them. Cassius didn’t care, but he let them do it. 

Once they were ready, they all looked at each other, and then at him. Cassius looked at Cyrus, who nodded. 

Cassius nodded back. “Let’s begin,” he said.

And they began. 

\---

Gino couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t at least a little bit scared stepping into the Sorcerer King’s castle. It was huge, easily the biggest building Gino had ever seen, including the cathedral in Jdinrma-Hash that wasn’t there anymore. He didn’t want to be here, and he really didn’t want his friends to be here, but he didn’t have a choice and besides, he wasn’t going to look like a coward in front of Sawyer. 

Max had been here all this time, Gino told himself. If Max could live here, Gino could visit. And besides, soon the Sorcerer King would be dead and then the castle would be safe. And after that…

Gino didn’t really know what was going to happen after that. Ech’kent was going to be ruled by people who were from there, but he wasn’t sure who. It wasn’t going to be them, he assumed. Maybe the dragons. But he glanced at Sean and Sawyer, who were both walking normally but only from practice. He could still picture Claudius and Castor fucking both of them. Was having dragons in charge really that great an idea? Knowing three as well as he did had taught him that dragons didn’t give a shit about human politics. They liked to fuck and eat and sometimes both at the same time. If dragons were in charge, would everyone have to let them fuck them whenever they wanted? Would they even care about running a nation aside from that? Gino didn’t think so. 

But it seemed like he was the only one worried about it, so he didn’t say anything. Killing the Sorcerer King was important, and Gino didn’t want to be the one to mess it up by saying something that everyone else had already thought of, probably. 

He took Sawyer’s hand, feeling better right away. He felt better being with them, all of them. Even Cyrus. As long as they were all together, he felt like they’d be okay. 

They passed through an empty courtyard that was cluttered with a lot of stuff. A latrine was at the far end, making the place smell bad. Max was standing in the doorway on the other side, and he smiled when he saw them. It was a smile that looked like it hurt. “There you are,” he said, nervous. “I’ve been waiting for you.” 

“Sorry we were late,” Gino said, letting go of Sawyer for a second to go hug Max. It was good to see him okay. Even if the dragons and Cyrus had said he was okay, hearing that and knowing it were two different things. “Are you okay? You didn’t get hurt, right?”

Max shook his head, still smiling that smile that looked wrong. “No. I’m okay.” He glanced at the others in a way that made Gino wonder what he’d say if it was just the two of them. Something had happened. “Come on, I’ll take you to the throne room.”

“Where’s Derek?” Cyrus asked. That was the castle servant who was helping them. Apparently Max said he was nice. 

“He’s inside,” Max said, paused in the doorway. “He’s distracting the guards.” 

“Okay,” Cyrus said, while Gino looked at Max. “It’s better if we split up.” 

“What?” Sawyer asked, wheeling on Cyrus. “No, it’s not.” 

Cyrus smiled at him. “It is. You three need to be the ones to kill the king, not me. And not Cassius, either. It has to be people from Ech’kent who do it, or it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a symbol, just like everything else.” 

That made sense to Gino, but it still sounded wrong. “Where are you going to go?” 

“To create a distraction in the castle,” Cyrus said. 

“We don’t need that,” Sawyer said. “Derek is already doing that.” 

“Yeah, I thought that was the whole point,” said Gino, glancing between Max and Cyrus. 

Cyrus sighed, looked at Cassius, who nodded. “Okay, listen. I shouldn’t have kept this from you. The king has a sister, a baby. We need to rescue her. I don’t want a baby to get killed by accident, so I’m going to go make sure she’s okay, and to keep the fighting away from her.” 

The expressions on everyone’s faces said that none of them had known about this either. “Why didn’t you say anything?” Max asked quietly. “Why’d you lie?” 

“Because I didn’t want you guys to worry. It was a mistake, I’m sorry. I’m going to go get her and I’ll meet you all in the throne room after you’ve dealt with the king.” 

Sawyer still looked unsure. “Okay,” said Gino. “But what about the king’s magic?” 

“That won’t be a problem,” Cyrus promised, smiling a little. “You don’t need a whole dragon to be magic-proof. With the amount of dragon cum inside us, we’ll be safe from sorcerers forever.” 

That…seemed so stupid. Gino frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” 

“Okay,” Sawyer said, before Gino could. “We’ll meet you there, then.” 

Gino didn’t think this was a good idea. Nothing about it felt right. But everyone else seemed so sure. So he didn’t say anything. Cyrus hugged them all, one by one. “I’ll see you all soon,” he promised, and then he and Cassius went off down a different hallway that the rest of them. Something didn’t feel right. 

Max swallowed. “Come on,” he said. “The throne room is this way, up the stairs.” 

Everyone else seemed to think it was a good idea. So even though Gino was pretty sure it wasn’t, and even though he was pretty sure his friend was lying to them, he went with them. He wasn’t going to ruin everything by being the only one to disagree.

\---

Sean had never been more aware of the cum in his ass. It was a constant feeling in his life anyway, but now he was thinking about it. It would protect him from magic? Seemed too good to be true. 

It was only three loads, one from each dragon, plus the remnants of whatever was in there from last night. Plus whatever was still in his stomach. At some point, Sean had started thinking of that as the normal amount, and he wasn’t sure what to make of that. 

They followed Max into the castle, up some stairs. Sean wondered why Gino seemed so worried. It wasn’t like Gino to worry about things, really. 

So he asked. “What’s wrong?” 

Gino smiled at him. “I’m just nervous. Shouldn’t we wait here?” he asked Max. “Until the dragons start attacking the castle? Isn’t the whole point that they’re supposed to be our distraction?”

Now that Gino said that, nothing had really happened. There was no sound, no people running around and shouting, nothing. “What’s taking them so long?”

“I’m sure they’re just getting ready,” Max said, shuffling his feet on the stairs. “We can wait a few minutes, though. The king isn’t going anywhere, probably.”

He also seemed nervous. Sean didn’t know him as well as Gino, so he didn’t know if that was normal or not. But it kind of made Sean nervous too, and he caught himself reaching for Sawyer’s hand. He wasn’t a little boy. 

Sawyer took it anyway. “You okay?”

Sean nodded, going down a few steps to sit down, since they were apparently just waiting here. Gino and Max were sitting together a few steps up. 

“You noticed it too?” Sawyer asked quietly, sitting next to him.

“Noticed what?”

“That Max is lying.”

Sean hadn’t noticed that, but it sent a spike of fear through him and he looked up at Sawyer, moving closer to him without meaning to. “Are…we going to be okay?”

His brother put his arm around him. “Yeah.”

“Are you lying too?”

“No. I’ll make sure you’re okay, Sean. You and Gino both, I promise.”

That made Sean feel better, until he realized that what Sawyer had promised wasn’t quite what he’d asked. 

And as he realized that, the castle started to shake. 

\---

Flying in a circle around the castle, Castor immediately saw something wrong. 

And that something was his human standing on top of a tower where, if something were to happen to the building, he would fall to his death. 

Growling, Castor banked downwards, shifting as he got closer to the tower and landing hard in front of Derek with his wings flared. “What are you doing?” he demanded, hands on Derek’s shoulders. “You’ll get hurt. Go inside to somewhere safe.” They weren’t here to destroy this building, just to cause some damage to the exterior. 

“I will,” Derek said, smiling in that way that lit up everything for Castor, even under the bright sun. “Listen, I need to ask you something before you start attacking the castle.” 

Now seemed like an odd time for that, but humans were odd. Claudius had landed behind them too. “Of course. What is it?”

“How much did Cassius tell you about the plan?” Derek asked, voice carrying that note of danger that Castor loved. He’d never been so afraid of anything as he was afraid of Derek.

“Same as he told you,” Castor said, because it was a silly question. “You know everything I know, Derek.”

Derek’s expression said he didn’t believe that. “Would you tell me if I didn’t?”

“Of course. I love you.” He kissed Derek. He worried that Derek didn’t believe him when he said that.

“I know you do,” Derek said, nodding. “Listen, I want…”

“What the fuck?” Claudius asked suddenly, looking past them. 

Castor looked up, and Derek turned around, and all three of them saw it. 

Cassius, flying away from the castle. 

“What…is he doing?” Castor was sure their siremate wouldn’t abandon them. He wouldn’t. Which meant that he had to be doing something important. 

Derek watched him disappear into the distance, and he didn’t look surprised. Just angry. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I’m going inside. You two give me five minutes and then start the attack.”

“But…” Castor looked between his human and his siremate, feeling suddenly like he could only chase one of them even if Derek wasn’t moving. “Shouldn’t we…” 

Castor and Claudius had always done what Cassius wanted them to. He’d always been there for them. 

“No,” Derek said. “Do what we already agreed on.”

“Derek…”

“If he wanted you to call off the attack, he’d have told you,” Derek said. “Don’t you trust him?”

Of course Castor did. Cassius wouldn’t put them in serious danger. Not like that. But something was wrong. And Castor knew that Cassius was in trouble with the matriarch. And he also knew, as much as he’d never say it, that Cassius would do anything Cyrus asked of him. 

And Cyrus had asked this of him. And something told Castor that Derek knew that too. 

“I’m going inside,” Derek said again. “Wait five minutes and then start. Be careful.”

“Stay out here,” Castor said, grabbing Derek’s wrist. Something about this was all wrong. “Ride on my back. You’ll be safer.”

“Oh, Castor,” Derek said, getting up on his toes and kissing Castor’s cheek. “I’ll be safe anyway. And I have stuff I have to do in the castle now. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“But…”

“I love you,” Derek said, throwing Castor off-balance. “Now go.”

Castor never wanted to let go of Derek. But he did, and headed for the edge of the tower. “Be safe.”

“You too.”

Derek disappeared around the ledges carved into the side of the tower, and Castor watched him go. Claudius punched his arm. “Weakling. Pushed around by a human.”

“As if you aren’t too,” Castor growled.

“Please. Mine does as he’s told.”

That was a lie, thought Castor as he leapt into the air and turned back. No human did as they were told. 

It was something to love about them. 

\---

The doors of the throne room were huge and fancy, inlaid with dark gold and made from reddish wood. And they were unguarded. Whoever this Derek guy was, he’d really done a good job. They hadn’t seen a single one of the Sorcerer King’s guards all the way here, nor a single one of his servants.

Except Max. The black livery he was wearing stood out in all the regular clothes they had on. It had silver buttons and piping, and the crest of House Arkhewer, a dragon in flight, sewn on the front. In his head, Sawyer knew that he had to dress like that or else people in the castle would think something was wrong. 

Emotionally, Sawyer knew that Max was lying to them about something and the fact that he was dressed like one of the invader’s lackeys made it hard to trust him even if he was Gino’s friend. 

“Wait,” Sawyer said, as they approached the doors. Max had his hand up as if to push one open. Sawyer had waited as long as he could, hoping Cyrus would join them. He hadn’t yet.

“What’s wrong?” Max asked. 

Sawyer took out the knife that Cyrus had given him this morning. The one he was supposed to kill the Sorcerer King with. “I want to know what you’re not telling us.”

Gino frowned at him. “Sawyer.”

“Come on, Gino,” Sawyer interrupted. “You know he’s lying. We all know he’s lying.”

Had Cyrus known he was lying? Sawyer wished he were here. 

Max looked scared, but he didn’t move away. “I’m n-not.” 

“Yes, you are,” Sean said, quietly. He also sounded scared. Sawyer couldn’t be scared. Someone had to not be scared.

“I’m…Gino, I’m not.”

“Max,” Gino said, in that soft, gentle voice that Sawyer loved. “Just tell us what’s going on, please.”

Max crumpled immediately under that voice, tears springing to his eyes. “I’m sorry! I didn’t want to lie, but, but, Cyrus is lying to you guys. You can’t trust him.”

“What?” Sawyer asked, stepping forward. Max stepped back. “Of course we can, he’s our friend.”

“Then why did he tell us that nobody died when we destroyed the cathedral?” Max asked, making Sawyer blink. What? “A whole bunch of people died. Why did he lie about that?”

“He didn’t,” Sawyer said. He wished Cyrus were here. “He wouldn’t have done that.” Cyrus would have known what to do.

“Why did he lie about why he was leaving? He never told you about the baby until you made him.” Max closed his eyes, a quiet sob escaping him. “And how did he know about the baby? I never told him that and neither did Derek.”

“Well…” Sawyer looked at Sean and Gino. They needed him to be confident, to be strong. “I don’t know, Cyrus knows stuff. It’s what he does.” 

Max shook his head. “You can’t trust him. You can’t trust him. It’s…he’s wrong about what’s good for Ech’kent. King Sam is the ruler the plateau needs, not Cyrus or us or a bunch of dragons who don’t care about us. King Sam and Lord Henry are doing a good job.”

“They _murdered_ our families, Max!” Sean said, voice rising to a shout. “What is wrong with you?”

“We have to go,” Sawyer whispered. “We have to get out of the castle. It’s a trap.” Max had led them into a trap. 

“It’s too late,” Max said, as the castle shook again. The dragons must be doing a lot of damage out there. How were they going to escape without their help? They would have to flat one of them down, or find Cyrus and Cassius in the castle, get… “It’s too late,” Max repeated. “The exit’s blocked. The king’s not in the throne room. You can’t escape. You guys need to surrender. They promised not to hurt any of you.”

Sawyer felt cold, felt empty. All of this was a trap. It had all been for nothing.

“Who promised that?” Gino, smart Gino, asked. “The king?”

“Derek,” Max said, shaking his head. 

“And why do you trust Derek? Why do you trust Derek instead of Cyrus?”

“Because Cyrus is a liar and I have to trust someone!” Max’s voice rang through the hall, nearly a shriek.

Gino looked at the floor. “Why didn’t you trust us, Max?” He sounded so hurt. Sawyer hated how hurt he sounded. “Why didn’t you trust me?”

“I’m sorry,” Max whimpered. 

“That’s not good enough.” Sawyer waved them his way. “We have to go. We have to get out of here. We have to…”

“You can’t,” Max said, moving for the throne room door. “They’re already here.” He raised his hand to knock, to summon the guards, to…

Sawyer moved without thinking, knife in hand, racing towards Max. Everyone shouted. Someone collided with him. Gino’s hands were on his. There was blood. 

Sawyer dropped the knife when he saw Gino’s blood. He’d moved in between Sawyer and Max. “G-Gino!”

Gino smiled, more of a grimace. His hand was bleeding. “He’s my friend, Sawyer.”

“I, I didn’t mean to,” Sawyer said, taking Gino’s hurt hand in his. It was a deep cut. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” He wished Cyrus was here, more than anything. Cyrus would know what to do. 

The throne room doors opened, and guards poured out, surrounding them, Sawyer pulled Sean closer, protecting him and Gino. “You guys are coming with us,” one of the guards said, pushing Max into the circle. 

“H-hey, I’m not…”

“Shut up.” The guard didn’t hit Max hard, but he did hit him. And all Sawyer could think was that he could have hit harder.

Numb, the four of them were led away in silence. In failure. 

\---

The building called a castle was made of sturdier stuff than the cathedral. It took several blasts of flame before its walls started to crumble, and even then, it didn’t collapse in entire like the cathedral had, only parts of it falling down at a time.

That was fine. The point wasn’t to destroy the castle, especially not with Max and the others inside. The point was only to do some damage, to make their point. 

Claudius wasn’t sure what their point was anymore. He’d never really cared what it was, but he’d always been confident that Cassius had a plan, that there was a prize for them all in the end. But now Cassius had taken off, leaving them here. They hadn’t been attacked so far, and maybe they wouldn’t be. But he’d left them here.

Claudius couldn’t even blame him. His human had probably asked it of him, and if Max showed up right now and asked him to fly away, he would. Humans were more trouble than they were worth, he thought. They show up and just…take over. 

And all three of them had let it happen. And if the way Claudius felt about Max was any indication, all three of them would let it happen again, given the choice. 

They’d been instructed not to damage the north-facing side of the castle, as that was where their humans would be. So he and Castor circled around, attacking the other three sides at random, aiming for the least damaged part each time. It had seemed stupid at the time, not trying to cause serious damage, but Claudius thought he understood. The point was to show that they _could_ do worse damage than this if they wanted to. It was like when he and Castor had been younger and they’d tried to steal some food from Cassius. He’d not killed them, or even hurt them badly. But he’d beat them just enough to show that he could have. And they’d never stolen food from him again. And neither, importantly, had anyone else. 

That was what they were doing with the castle. Claudius collapsed a large sheaf of wall, thinking that it was actually somewhat fun, more interesting than just reducing it to rubble. He could feel magic in the walls, in the building itself, protecting it, and he was showing that that magic was nothing to him.

There was more of it than usual in the area that he’d just damaged, but Claudius ignored it, flying around to hit another wall. Then there was a heavy surge of magic, which he also ignored. Maybe an attack. But magic couldn’t hurt him. It couldn’t…

By the time he hit the ground, Claudius was dead asleep, and didn’t even notice. 

\---

 _I’m sorry_. The words hung in Max’s mind, unspoken, knocking around. He was still dizzy from Quint hitting him. Derek had said that none of them would be hurt. He didn’t understand why he was in here too. He didn’t understand any of this. 

The guards hadn’t taken them to the castle dungeons because there’d been a collapse somewhere and it wasn’t safe, so the four of them were locked in a small room with a bed and two chairs. They’d been stripped to their loincloths and had everything taken away from them. 

Sawyer was sitting on the bed with Gino and Sean, trying to rip the blanket to make a bandage for Gino’s hand. It was going slowly, the sound of tearing fabric occasionally interrupting soft whimpers of pain from Gino. 

Max sat near the corner, as far away from them as he could. They hated him, he knew that. He’d only been trying to help. He’d only been trying to protect them all, to keep them safe, to make them see that they were being tricked. 

They were his only friends and he’d lied to them and gotten them arrested. They’d only been trying to avenge their parents and Max had taken that away from them. He understood why they hated him. He hated himself. 

_Why didn’t you trust us, Max?_

Had Derek lied to him too? Max hadn’t thought of that until now. Maybe it wasn’t Cyrus they couldn’t trust, maybe it was Derek. Or maybe it was both, but either way, it meant Max had been tricked into dooming his friends. Derek had lied about the guards not hurting him. What else had he lied about? Were they all going to be executed now?

Max hoped Claudius got away. He wished Claudius were here. He knew Claudius wouldn’t lie to him, and wouldn’t hate him. 

The sound of crying filled the room, and it took Max a few seconds to realize it was coming from him. He’d ruined everything. He’d lost all his friends, probably gotten them all killed, and for what? Because he’d thought he could do the right thing? The right thing was not lying to people. The right thing was being a good friend. The right thing was…

“Hey.”

Max looked up, shocked at Sawyer’s voice. He hadn’t heard him get up. He shrank down, sure he was about to be hit. Sawyer had tried to kill him earlier. That was why Gino was hurt. Why had Gino protected him? 

Sawyer didn’t raise his hand to hit Max, but it would have made more sense for him to kick from this position. He was holding what was left of the blanket, blurry in Max’s tear-clouded eyes. “Stop crying,” Sawyer said, gruff. “You’re upsetting Gino.”

“I…I’m sorry,” Max choked, trying to get his tears under control. They didn’t want to hear from him, they hated him. They probably thought he was trying to trick them into feeling sorry for him. They knew he was a liar. “I’m sorry.”

“Just be quiet.” Sawyer tossed the blanket at Max, surprising him. “You’re shivering.” 

Hearing that made him realize how cold he was, and Max shook all over as he wrapped the blanket around himself, putting it around his back between his skin and the stone wall. Why was Sawyer being so nice to him? He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve…

He couldn’t ask. Sawyer had already gone back to the bed, holding Sean and Gino close. The three of them were together. 

And Max, the liar, the traitor, was alone. 

\---

The entity popularly known as Scott loved parties, and this was a great party. Like all good parties, it had family drama, enemies becoming friends and friends becoming enemies, relationships falling apart, early exits and uninvited guests. 

“Would it surprise you to learn that we’re surrounded by centipedes?” The almost-human called James had fallen from a tower to land here in the courtyard with poor, put-upon, persecuted King Sam. Scott thought they were becoming friends. 

Rather than laughing at the banality of that statement—as if they weren’t always surrounded by Scott—the demon simply began to form its meat-mannequin, predicting that the king would want a word. Scott was a good little servant like that. 

“Scott, what the fuck are you doing?” The vibrations of the king’s voice had a tremor in them. 

“Heh, you ruined the game, Joy.” Not really. Nothing a consecutive being did was broad enough to so much as smudge a game of Scott’s. “I had a whole surprise planned, too. I was here to break your fall in case it came to that, Sammy. Nothing nefarious, promise. Can I eat the dragon?” There were two dragons, if one wanted to count by body instead of species. The marginally bigger one behind them all, unconscious thanks to a power that a human shouldn’t have, and the one who’d just landed with Scott’s pet human in its arms. There was also the dragon flying east. Scott wondered whether that one would come back. One of the few things it didn’t know. 

“No. You can…” The hesitation in Sam’s voice was unlike it. James was a bad influence. “You can go back to the pit where you belong.” 

“I can?” Scott belonged everywhere, and it wondered whether Sam realized that when wording its orders. “That’s so nice of you, Sammy! But I’m going to stay here, actually. Hey, Tipsy.” Scott didn’t materialize a different shape when it appeared before the human called Jocelyn of the Black Witch Clan inside the castle. “Guess what I know that you don’t? Careful, Princey. There’s about to be a big blow-up.” Scott didn’t want Derek getting hurt. Yet.

Movement under Scott as Derek nodded its head, didn’t answer because its dragon would hear. 

“Sam,” James said, vibrations coming fast, the pump- _pump_ of its heart picking up. “I don’t care what you’ve been told. That thing is not under your control. You have to send it back to where it came from or it’ll kill all of us.”

“Don’t have time for your games, monster,” Jocelyn snapped. “I’m busy.” Maybe Scott should have mentioned to its rebel friends that all these other humans were going to be at their party.

“I will, will I? You’re looking for your bundle of joy, I know. Will I, I will? I suppose it’s not a bad idea, but don’t you know, I love Sammy way too much to kill him, Joy. Should I bring you to him? Why would you ever think otherwise? I’d hug him right now but I’m not allowed cause he’s so mean. You might want to get your muscle to step back.”

“That’s enough.” Sam was always so irritable when the human called Henry Arkhewer wasn’t near enough to spit on. “Go back to the pit, Scott. I don’t want to hear you again until I call you.” 

“I’m making no bargain with you.”

“Consider it a gift. Okay, okay, I know when I’m not wanted. See you soon. Oh, Joy, it’s not me you should worry about. Look behind you.” Scott collapsed its form skittered most of itself away, leaving just what was on Derek and one more just in case, opening as it did a nice portal for Jocelyn to step through, creating portals for the rest of its family in the process, just for fun, sending them to meet the Sea King just to keep it distracted. 

Jocelyn and James began fighting, a pitiful display that Scott would have laughed at if it had been allowed to show itself to Sam. Both of them were capable of so much more than this, and even after the faery got involved, it wasn’t nearly enough destruction for Scott’s liking. Derek was about to join Sam, which was more interesting. 

“Your Majesty? Should Castor and I help? He’s magic-proof.” Derek was so good at being the kind of human other humans wanted it to be. 

“No. Stay out of it until there’s a winner. Then we’ll kill them while they’re distracted.” Scott giggled in Derek’s ear, because of course Sam didn’t notice the irony of it saying that when it was too distracted to notice Scott hiding nearby. 

“Understood. The leaders of the rebels seem to have disappeared,” Derek said, doing that thing that humans did where they lied by telling the truth. “I think they’ve abandoned their people here. The attack’s over.”

“About time. We’ll talk later about how bad you are at managing attacks on the castle.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Don’t mind him,” Scott said in Derek’s ear. “I think you’re doing a great job of managing this party.” 

Derek tilted his head, but no other answer. It was really going to have to stop keeping secrets from its dragon if they were going to be together. 

Idly tracking the fight between the two witches it didn’t care overly about, Scott perked up when some more uninvited guests appeared. Standing behind what had used to be called the Web, the lock that had kept Scott’s friends out of the world, were two ghosts, one of which had been human once. Just as they appeared, Jocelyn did something funny to James, making it bleed. Scott wondered what its blood tasted like. 

And then one of the ghosts—Isaac, Scott knew Isaac—stopped the knife Jocelyn had thrown, making it fall to the ground. The ghosts were chattering about healing and magic and other things they didn’t know anything about. And behind Jocelyn was Derek, knife in hand. “Little higher,” Scott advised it. 

Derek nodded, jabbed the dagger between two of Jocelyn’s ribs. Jocelyn’s pain rang through the air. “What the…fuck…” It stepped backward, opened a portal, took itself, Derek and Castor away. 

“Dammit,” Jocelyn said, stomping the ground on the island that it thought belong to it. “You little…” It turned on Derek, raising its hand as if the power it summoned was threatening, and found itself grabbed by Derek’s dragon. 

“You will not harm him,” the dragon growled. 

“He’s awfully cute,” Scott told Derek. 

“You…”

“I don’t think you’ll die from that,” Derek said with a smile. It always smiled. “I’m sure your family can heal you when they get back. But Sam needs James’s help with something important. I’m sure you understand.”

“What I understand is that you won’t be leaving this island,” Jocelyn said. As it said that, the plants and ground around them started to move. 

“He’s…healing him,” Isaac said to the other ghost. Sam was making James’s body forget it had been broken, one of those temporary reversals of linear time that gave Scott hope that humans might someday be more than vermin. 

“Yeah, thank goodness,” the other ghost said, for once orienting causal morality correctly. “That could have ended very badly.”

“Don’t give up hope, it still could,” Scott said, rearing up. “Now, now, Tipsy. Let’s not do anything stupid.” Scott grabbed Jocelyn’s arm, making it jump. 

“Who’s that?” Isaac demanded. 

“I…I don’t…”

“You!”

“Hi, Scott,” Derek said.

“Hi, let’s get you home before you’re missed, okay? I’m right here, boys. Hey.”

It took them a linear second, because humans always thought that something that communicated like them must necessarily also look like them. But Isaac finally had the grace to seem sick. “One of those was inside Christopher.”

“Derek, do you know this…thing?”

“It’s just Scott, Castor.” 

Jocelyn’s blood was on the ground now and Scott nibbled it up. It opened up a portal, pushed Derek and the dragon inside, snapped it closed, leaving itself alone with Jocelyn. “You’re lucky I think you’re funny, Tipsy. Cause if I didn’t, I’d have to eat you for trying to hurt humans I like. Heh. At the same time he was inside you, Whistle.” Scott was glad to know Isaac was alive and well. Not having a body didn’t mean that Scott couldn’t eat it. “Did you miss me? I was thinking it might be nice to fuck you again sometime.” It didn’t really care about sex with humans, but they cared, and it was fun to bite the things they cared about and see what happened. 

“Why does it know we’re here?” Isaac asked. Why were humans always so slow? 

“I’ve no time for your threats, monster. Leave.” 

“Threats are things you don’t plan to do,” Scott told it. “I know a lot of things, boys.” It got closer to the ghosts, curling around Derek’s ear tightly, not saying anything as it exerted a little power to keep Derek from melting. Rather than sending it right home, Scott had taken the scenic route through one of its old neighbourhoods. “I see a lot of things. Everything, really. I know what you’re up to. It’s not going to work. Cause I’m going to eat you long before it can.” Them, and their Web with them. 

Scott scattered out of Jocelyn’s sight as the ghosts ran away to what they thought was safety, giggling. That let it focus on Derek, which it would rather do anyway. 

Really, this had been a fun party. It was too bad it was almost over. 

\---

Everything was whirling, spinning, moving. There wasn’t enough air, everything was loud. Derek doubled over, Castor kneeling beside him, unforgiving rock that move underneath them. The air, if it was air, Derek couldn’t breathe properly, was hot, putrid, tasted like coal. 

And all around them was screaming, chittering. Everything seemed so _big_ and loud and it was everywhere no matter how much Derek squeezed Castor’s hand he felt so _alone._

“Calm down,” Scott said in his ear. “It’s just hell.”

Derek threw up, knees hitting the ground. Something he couldn’t perceive flowed around him, his vomit disappearing. “Hell?” he choked. This was where Scott was from. 

He could feel Scott all around him, not just in his clothes, but around him like a shield, keeping the worst of it away from him. Why had Scott sent him here if it was so dangerous? Was he going to die here? No, Derek didn’t think Scott would do that. Scott would eat him if he wanted him dead. So why…

“Because you’re going to want to build up an immunity to it at some point,” Scott tittered. “That’s probably enough time, though.”

A breath of fresh air hit Derek and he fell to hard ground with a cry. Castor landed on top of him. 

Derek had barely caught his breath when he heard the king’s voice. “I told you to go back to the pit.”

“The part of me on Tipsy’s island thought you might want your toys back,” Scott said, in a body behind Derek suddenly. “Going to the pit, bye!”

His body collapsed, and the centipedes raced away. Derek tried to stand up. His ears were bleeding. 

“What the fuck happened?” Lord Henry asked, looking them both up and down as they stood. 

“I’m not…super sure?” Derek checked Castor for injuries. He seemed okay. Blood in his ears too, but not hurt. “It all happened very fast. I think Jocelyn got away, though.” He was a little disoriented. He’d stabbed Jocelyn, gone to the island, Scott had been there? And then he’d gone to hell for a bit. 

“Great,” the king muttered, not giving Derek time to recover. He never gave anyone time to do anything, he just expected them to be what he needed. Derek could do that. He just… A growl shook the air. “What the hell is…”

“It’s the other dragon,” Henry said, looking over at Claudius. He’d fallen here some time before Derek had convinced Castor to stop attacking. He was just laying there. He’d knocked part of the wall down, and his wing looked broken to Derek. 

Okay. Okay, he had to work now. He could freak out later. Derek had to work now. “Oh, Claudius is awake,” Derek said, trying to sound normal. Scott laughed at him. “Castor, go get him? I’ll tell the others you guys are okay. And on my side.” That was important. Max and his friends needed to know that Derek had the two dragons. 

“Claudius won’t…” Castor was about to start growling. 

“Tell him I have Max.” Derek didn’t have time to argue about this. 

Castor looked at him for a second, shaking. He wasn’t angry, Derek thought. He was frightened. Derek put as much of a plea into his expression as he could. He’d explain later, he would. And then Castor nodded, went over to get his brother, who’d just shifted back into his smaller form. 

“Put those two somewhere until tomorrow,” the king said suddenly. He looked as tired as Derek. “And your rebels as well. I’ll talk to them tomorrow. They can stew for a night while I decide what to do with them.”

“Yes, your Majesty.” He was only doing that to remind Derek that he could. That was fine. It gave Derek time to do what he needed to do. The look on Henry’s face said that he knew that. Derek smiled at him. “Anything else?”

“No. Go away.” The king leaned against Henry, barely perceptible. Derek dutifully pretended not to notice, bowing to Henry before heading for the castle at a trot. 

He waited until Castor and Claudius joined him. “I’m going to give you two a room to sleep in tonight,” he told them. “Is your wing okay? I think that’s going to need to be set.” It was bent at a bad-looking angle. If it healed like that he wouldn’t be able to fly. 

“Where’s Max?” Claudius growled, ignoring him. He advanced on Derek. “What have you done with Max?”

Castor got in between them, but Derek held up his hands. “I’ll take you to him. He’s fine, I promise. But listen, he and I have switched sides for now. It’s the only way the king is going to let us live. You two work for the Sorcerer King now.”

 _You play pretend so well, Princey_ , Scott teased, his voice once again in Derek’s head instead of his ear.

“We serve no human,” Claudius insisted, taking another step forward, ignoring how Castor growled at him.

Derek didn’t growl. “You serving this human is the only way to make sure he doesn’t behead Max in the morning,” he said evenly, and that made Claudius stop. “Cassius isn’t here to protect you, which means you have to protect yourself. This is how.”

Actually, Derek was the one doing the protecting, but that wouldn’t go over as well as far as an argument went. And sure enough, it only took a few seconds for both brothers to subside a little. “Where’s Max?” Claudius asked, tone dangerous.

“I’ll take you to him.” Derek turned and led the way, feeling Castor behind him and Scott on his skin. He wished Castor—or anyone, really—would hug him. But he didn’t have time for that, not yet. 

He stopped a castle guard and asked where the prisoners were being held, and got directions. He’d specifically ordered them not to put anyone in the dungeons because they weren’t safe. It turned out to be a sort of nice guest room in the north wing, which wasn’t too bad. 

Derek went there, waving Quint off the door and opening it. “You here to break them out?” Quint asked him.

Derek sighed. He really didn’t want anything bad to happen to Quint. But he was probably going to die soon if he didn’t stop being an asshole. “Maybe. Make sure the room across the hall is ready for these two, will you?”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

Now Derek looked at him full-on, putting on his best smile. “Do you want to find out what happens if you don’t?”

Quint flinched, and went across the hall. Derek shook his head, going inside. There were three boys sitting on the small bed, and Max was in the corner. “Max,” Claudius said, pushing Derek into Castor to get to him. “Are you okay?” 

Max nodded, giving Derek a wary look. He had some swelling around his eye. “I’m okay. Are you? What happened?”

“Did someone hit you?” Derek asked, sighing. “They weren’t supposed to hurt any of you.”

“No, that’s your job, isn’t it?” the older of the three boys on the bed asked. “You’re Derek. The traitor.” 

“Hey,” Castor said, but Derek put a hand on his chest. 

“Yes,” Derek said. “I’m Derek. You must be Sawyer, and Sean and Gino.” It wasn’t hard to tell which was which. Sean looked just like his brother. 

“You’re the one who made Max betray us,” Gino whispered.

Oh, so they knew about that. Oops. Derek glanced at Max. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I asked the guards to put you in here with them so they wouldn’t realize you’d mislead them. I’ll get them to let you out.” 

Max shook his head, in the middle of a hug with Claudius. “I’ll stay here. I deserve it.”

“You did the right thing, Max,” Derek assured him, because he sounded like he might not be sure of that.

“I…”

“Where’s Cyrus?” Sawyer demanded, drawing Derek’s attention back to him. “What did you do with him?”

Derek looked at the floor. “I haven’t done anything with him. He and Cassius left before the attack started.”

That rocked all three of them, but Sawyer just got angry. “How…he wouldn’t do that.”

“He did,” Castor said, stepping around Derek. “They both left, Claudius and I saw them.” 

“Where did they go?” Sean asked, voice quiet.

“East, that’s all I know.” Derek looked at the door. “Listen, I don’t have long. The king wants you four kept here overnight, and Castor and Claudius kept across the hall. He’ll talk to you all tomorrow. I’m going to convince him not to hurt you, but you have to help me.”

“Help you?” Sawyer got off the bed, shaking. He was bigger than Derek. “You expect us to help you after you betrayed us?”

Derek hadn’t betrayed them. “Yes. You’re all going to have to come work for the king, the two dragons included. I already told him you would, it’s how I convinced him to keep you alive this long.” 

“What…” Sawyer took a threatening step forward. He didn’t seem like someone who’d hit someone, though. “You can’t serious expect us to come work for the asshole who _killed our parents!_ We did all this to destroy him, to get rid of him!”

“That’s exactly what I expect you to do,” Derek snapped. Honestly, this wasn’t _hard_. He tried not to lose his temper with people, but he’d had a very long day and he was very tired and he wanted someone to hug him and he wanted go to bed. “The king destroyed my family and my life too. Do you see me thinking I can stab him in his own throne room and get away with it? The world isn’t that easy. Whoever told you that this was going to be just you coming in here, killing the king and then everything was going to be okay was lying to you. As soon as you do that, there’s going to be chaos all over the plateau, and that’s not even considering that he has a lot of powerful friends who will be able to do whatever they want if he’s dead. You need to think about this, you need to have a plan. You need be _careful_.”

“We had a plan,” Sawyer insisted.

“No, Cyrus had a plan,” Derek said. This was too important to mess around with. “I’m sorry. I understand that he’s your friend. But he lied to you and he abandoned you. He’s not interested in Ech’kent. And why would he be? He’s not from here. It’s up to us to free ourselves, and that’s what we’re going to do. You lost today. But your rebellion isn’t dead. It’s just moved inside the castle. And as long as you all do exactly what I tell you, we will dethrone the king. I promise all of you that. The Sorcerer King won’t rule Ech’kent forever.” 

Scott was laughing at him. Derek didn’t pay him any attention, watching the three on the bed intently. They were all looking at him like they’d never seen a person before. “So, what?” Sawyer asked. He looked uncertain. Derek didn’t need to ask to know that he was the one to convince. It was clear that Sean and Gino would follow his lead. “You’re our leader now?”

“No,” Derek said. He softened his voice. Being angry wouldn’t help now. “You guys don’t trust me. You’re the leader. But you have to listen to me. That’s the only way this is going to work. Can you do that? For Ech’kent?” 

_Out of curiosity, do you actually care about Ech’kent?_ Scott asked. Derek didn’t answer him. Of course he did. It was his home, and Derek loved it.

Sawyer looked at his friends, and slowly nodded. “Okay.” Gino and Sawyer did the same. Max looked like someone had knocked him over with an ox. 

Derek sighed. Thank goodness. Now they weren’t going to have to die. He turned to the dragons. “And you two?”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Castor said, as if it were that easy. “And…as long as Cassius is gone, these guys belong to us. They’re…our responsibility.” 

“We’re going to protect them,” Claudius agreed, holding Max. “All of them. If it means pretending to be a servant of this human, then so be it.”

Derek sighed, relief coursing through him. He’d staked his life on this gamble. _Well played, Princey_ , Scott said, amused. _Very well played. I’m proud of you._

Derek was proud of himself too. But there still wasn’t time to rest. “Okay,” he said. “Good. Now, here’s what you’re all going to say to the king tomorrow.”

Finally, it felt like this there was a chance for this to work. 

\---

The house was a burned-out husk, or at least part of it was. It had construction scaffolding up a few of its walls, but nobody was working on it at the moment.

Cyrus had had Cassius put them down about a kilometre from Jdinrma-Hash, so they wouldn’t be seen. They’d walked the rest of the way. 

“Are you going to tell me what we’re doing here, now that we’re here?” Cassius asked, looking up at the house.

Cyrus shook his head. “I have to talk to someone. You should go back to the castle. The others probably need your help.” They’d have been captured by now. He was trusting Derek to keep them alive, which was a tricky thing to do when he didn’t know Derek at all. 

Cassius shook his head, a human gesture he’d picked up from Sean. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

Cyrus didn’t want him to. He liked Cassius, a lot. Loved him, even. But he had to go. “The others need you.” Cyrus needed him.

“I don’t care about them.”

“That’s not true.”

“No,” Cassius agreed, tail swishing. “It’s not. But I care about you more. And I don’t understand what this is about.”

It was about the fact that Cyrus had done what he’d come to Ech’kent to do. “The baby,” he lied. “I have to get the baby.”

“You don’t care about the baby. Don’t lie to me, Cyrus.” 

Cyrus scowled, looked at the ground. “You’re not supposed to notice when I lie to you, Cassius. Lying is a trait that runs in my family. We’re all very good at it.”

“Maybe when you’re talking to humans. But I’m not, and I love you.”

Fuck. Cyrus really wished he hadn’t said that. He turned around and hugged Cassius. “You need to go get the others,” he said, listening to Cassius’s heartbeat.

“If I do,” rumbled Cassius, his chest rising and falling under Cyrus’s head, “I have a terrible feeling that I’ll never see you again.”

 _Fuck._ Cyrus squeezed his eyes shut, wishing this stupid emotion wasn’t there. Fuck. He couldn’t lie. “I have to go, Cassius. They don’t need me here anymore.”

“Yes, they do, and so do I.” Cassius held him tighter, as if to stop him leaving.

“You don’t. Nobody needs me. I’m just an instrument.” An instrument of other people’s will. That was all Cyrus had ever been. 

“Not to me.” Cassius pulled back from the hug, hands on Cyrus’s shoulders, looking down at him. “I’ll come with you. Wherever you’re going, I’ll come with you.”

“You can’t.” Cyrus wanted him to.

“Too bad,” Cassius said. He smiled, touched Cyrus’s nose. “You want me to.”

Why did he know that? Cyrus had practiced hiding his emotions for years. He sniffed, feeling himself start to cry. “I do,” he admitted, because apparently he couldn’t lie to Cassius. Fuck. “I do. But you can’t. I can’t ask you to leave your home, your family, your…”

“You’re not asking. I’m telling. I’m coming with you.” 

“I feel…” Cyrus sniffed again, nose running. “I feel bad enough leaving them alone as it is, Cassius. You being here with them was the only thing that made me feel better about it.”

He’d made a mistake. Cyrus had always known he was going to leave. He’d never planned to stay. And he’d become friends with them anyway. He’d started to care about them anyway. What had he been thinking? 

“Then we’ll make sure to come back someday,” Cassius said simply. He said everything simply, as if everything was simple. 

“It’s not that easy,” Cyrus explained. “The world’s not that easy. I’m not that easy.” 

“I love you because you’re not easy, Cyrus,” Cassius said. “I want to be with you. I’m going where you go. And someday we’ll come back here and explain to the rest of them why you had to go. They’ll understand.”

They wouldn’t. They’d never forgive him for abandoning them. But Cyrus nodded, to make Cassius feel better. Because it was selfish, but he wanted Cassius to come with him. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. You win. We need to go in the house.”

“Who’s in the house?”

“My boss.” 

“I’m your boss,” Cassius reminded him, taking Cyrus in his arms. He leapt into the air, over the wall. 

“No,” Cyrus said, smiling. He was allowed this, he thought. He should be allowed this one selfish thing, after everything. “But I’ll let you keep pretending you are when people can see.”

The house was guarded by several of the king’s castle guards. All of them were standing perfectly still, looking forward, not seeing anything. Cyrus walked right past them with Cassius, into the house. He didn’t know exactly where to go. The house had a vaulted entry hall with a big central staircase and a big set of doors, or at least a doorframe where there should be a big set of doors, up top. Cyrus went there, into the house’s main hall, looking around. There were guards at the end of the hall, and he headed that way, figuring they were guarding what he was looking for.

Then he heard a baby crying. Cyrus smiled. 

The guy standing outside the door didn’t stop him and Cassius from going in. A woman maybe five years older than him was holding the baby, trying to rock her to sleep. She was pretty, round-faced and with a prominent nose. She kind of looked like Sean, but that didn’t mean anything. She looked up at Cyrus entered. “Hello,” she said, wary. “Who are you?”

“I’m Cyrus,” he said, coming in. “This is my friend Cassius. Are you Daisy?”

“Yes,” the woman said, smiling at him. “And this is Delilah.”

Cyrus got closer, looking at her. Squishy, but she was a baby, so that was normal. “May I hold her?”

“Of course.” Delilah handed him the baby and Cyrus held her, rocking her back and forth. She calmed down, looking up at him. “Looks like she likes you.”

“I think she’ll forget about that in a few minutes when she’s hungry,” Cyrus muttered, tickling her nose. Baby Delilah, the Sorcerer King’s sister.

“Are all humans this small when they’re born?” Cassius asked, alarmed.

Cyrus nodded, smiling at Delilah. He handed her back to Daisy. “Do me a favour and keep her very safe.” It was very important that nothing happen to this baby. 

“Of course. I’m her mother. Did the king send you here?” Daisy asked.

“No,” said Cyrus. He sighed. “You did.”

Daisy blinked, a frown starting to settle on her features, then stopping. She smiled. “Hello, Cyrus. I see you’ve brought a friend.” Her tone had changed, into something a lot more confident, a lot calmer. 

Cassius must have sensed the change, because he suddenly went tense. “Cyrus, what’s going on? Who is this?”

“I told you,” Cyrus said. “My boss. This is Klaus.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Klaus said through Daisy’s mouth. He even gave a little bow. “Or to have you make mine, I should say.”

Before Cassius could ask what that meant, Cyrus stepped in. “It’s done,” he said. “It’s over. They should be with the king by now. The plateau should stabilize for a long while.”

Klaus nodded. “I’m aware. Your work is appreciated as always, Cyrus. I hate to burden you, but I’m afraid your next task awaits right away.”

Cyrus nodded, but Cassius stepped forward. “Wait a minute. What the hell is going on?”

“Cassius…”

“No, he deserves an explanation.” Klaus put the baby back in her bassinet, smiling at Cassius. “Cyrus’s goal was never to dethrone King Samson. It was to create stability in this region by ensuring that he allied with his would-be enemies. That you and your kin chose to get involved is…extremely convenient. Having your siremates on his side as well as Cyrus’s friends will legitimize the king’s rule in a way that nothing else could.”

Cassius was quiet as he processed all of this. “You lied to us all the whole time.”

Cyrus nodded.

“Why?”

“Because terrible things are about to happen and stopping them is more important than having friends,” Cyrus said, simply. Cassius should understand that. 

“What terrible things?”

“An ancient war is about to be restaged, and the plateau here is one of the major battlegrounds. That’s why it was critical that this happen.” Klaus smiled. “Samson is a most unpleasant young man, but he’s a necessary evil for the time being, I’m afraid.”

The baby started to cry again. “I’m afraid time is very short,” Klaus said. He gestured, and a hole opened in the wall, leading to somewhere grassy, a gentle snow falling. “If you’re going with him, Cyrus will explain further. But I must ask you to go. I gave Cyrus his instructions last night.”

“When?” 

Cyrus just nodded again. Klaus had done that. “And now that this is over, you’ll leave Sawyer alone?” he asked.

“That’s what I promised, yes.”

“Okay.” That made Cyrus feel better. In the time he’d known him, which was only a few years, he’d never known Klaus to lie. “Okay, thank you. I’m going, Cassius. Are you coming with me?”

Cassius didn’t even consider. He took Cyrus’s hand. “Let’s go, then.”

And then went, through the portal, snow crunching under their feet. Cyrus looked back before the portal closed, to that room, to Ech’kent. 

_You’ll be okay, guys._

He was sure of that. He believed in them. In his friends. He loved them, all of them.

They’d be okay.


	11. For Some People, the Rebellion Is Just the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned in the last chapter, the story ends in chapter 10. In this epilogue, you're not going to find much about this particular story, but rather some connections to the rest of my series. So for readers of the rest of the series, enjoy, and for readers of just this story, enjoy also and hopefully you don't end up overwhelmed! 
> 
> And of course, since this is the last update to this story, I want to give a big thank you to everyone for reading, commenting and staying with me the whole story. I really appreciate your support!

“Klaus is a demon,” Cyrus explained as he and Cassius crunched through the snow. It wasn’t far to their destination. “But that doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

“I think it means nothing,” Cassius said, hand on Cyrus’s arm to guide him as they walked. Cyrus didn’t need to be guided, and Cassius wasn’t actually controlling where he went. It just made him feel better to feel like he was in control, so Cyrus let him do it. It was a harmless semblance. “That isn’t a word I’m familiar with.”

Cyrus nodded. He should have known that. “Okay. Well, it means two different things. It refers to creatures like Scott, but it also means people who have achieved a certain type of power. Klaus is the latter.” 

“So she’s human, that woman,” Cassius said, glancing back to where their portal had closed.

“Yes, but she wasn’t Klaus,” Cyrus explained. “Klaus controls people. He uses a spell that looks like a black thread to take over people’s minds and puppeteer their bodies to do what he wants. I know how it sounds,” he said, when Cassius started to growl. “I don’t like it either. I’m just explaining how he operates to you.”

“And he uses this spell to control you as well?” Cassius asked, grip tightening on Cyrus’s arm just a little.

“No. I work for him of my own will.” Cyrus looked up at his dragon. “This is me, Cassius, not someone else.”

Cassius nodded slowly, understanding. “Very well. What use, then, has he for underlings if he can simply control anyone? Surely it makes more sense for him to simply do as he wills rather than sending you on this errand.”

“It’s not that simple.” Cyrus didn’t fully understand Klaus’s power either, but he gave it his best shot based on what Klaus had told him a few years ago. “He can’t control whoever he wants. He can only place the spell on someone through physical contact, so he or one of the people he’s controlling has to be able to touch someone.” He touched Cassius’s hand with his. “He also told me that he needs them to be in a certain frame of mind.”

“What frame of mind is that?” Cassius asked, guiding Cyrus around a large stone in the snow. 

“I don’t know. But I gathered that they need to be somehow emotionally compromised. Like really upset, or frightened, or something. Klaus didn’t tell me that directly, I just know that mind control spells in general are easier to use on someone who isn’t fully in possession of all their faculties.” 

Cyrus wondered what state of mind Sawyer had been in when Klaus had put the spell on him. He had to assume that Klaus had kept his word and released Sawyer now. He’d never lied to Cyrus before. 

“I see,” Cassius said. “Still, it seems he could quite rapidly control a large number of people with that ability.”

“He can also only occupy one mind at a time,” Cyrus said. “He’s not like Scott, his mind spread across endless bodies. He’s only one man, so he’s only got one brain. When he’s not actively controlling his puppets, they’re just regular people going about their lives. He can sometimes direct their thoughts towards certain goals, but he can’t make them do whatever he wants when he’s not there.”

“Ah,” said Cassius, nodding now. Ahead of them were some tents, and a few horses tied to a tree. “I see now. He has need of you because you will do his will when he’s not watching.”

“Yes,” Cyrus said. “Basically. I know he’s…questionable, in terms of morality. But what he’s doing is really important, Cassius.”

“And what, exactly, is he doing?”

“He’s trying to save the world. You told me once that dragons used to have gods.”

“We did,” Cassius said. “They kept us as pets. So we killed them.”

Cyrus liked that story. It was a very dragon-like story. He’d love to know the details, even if it was just a story. Part of him wondered if it was, though. “You’ll like this, then. Humans used to have many gods too, more than just the one the Catechism worships.”

“Why don’t you any longer?”

Cyrus smiled at Cassius. “They treated us as slaves. So we killed them.” 

“Oh, really?” Cassius asked. He sounded impressed, and he wrapped his tail around Cyrus. “I knew you had it in you.”

Cyrus nodded. He hadn’t, when Klaus had first told him. “Only we weren’t as efficient at it as you. Some of them escaped, went into hiding.”

“I see now,” Cassius said, snorting. Hot air condensed in front of his face like smoke. “They’ve come back for revenge.”

“Yeah.” Cyrus blew out his own cloud of not-smoke. He didn’t think it was that simple. None of it was as simple as Klaus had presented to him, he knew that. “They’ve had a long time to plan and we’ve had a long time to get complacent. Klaus commanded the group that led the first war against the gods. He’s the only one who knew they were coming back.” 

“And everything that happened in the plateau was because of him?”

“More or less,” Cyrus said. “Look, I can’t claim to know the why of everything he does. He wanted the plateau stabilized. Convincing the rebel group to work for the king was the way to do that.” He leaned on Cassius a little as they approached the camp. There was one person standing there waiting for them. “You guys showing up was a surprise, but a convenient one. Your siremates helping the Sorcerer King will do more than almost anything to keep everything stable.”

“You assume they will help him.”

“I assume they’ll want to protect Max and Derek,” Cyrus said. 

“The colony has long had a non-interference policy with the humans. I was in trouble with the matriarch as it was for harbouring the five of you. They will simply take Claudius and Castor away.”

“I don’t think so.” Cyrus had never met a dragon matriarch, but Klaus had. “And neither does Klaus. He’s going to ensure that they don’t.” 

“You have a great deal of faith in him.”

“I have to.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise what did I leave my family and friends behind for?” Cyrus asked, as they entered the camp. The person standing there was a year or so younger than him, an Ech’kent native with a strong jaw and short hair. He nodded at Cyrus and then at one of the tents. 

“Is that…”

“Yes,” Cyrus said. He didn’t need to see the threads to recognize Klaus when Klaus wasn’t hiding. He went to the tent and pushed inside. 

In the tent, there was another guy, southern Kyainese by his dark brown colouring and the shape of his eyes, pointed chin and nose, he would be pretty tall when standing. He was naked, masturbating with two fingers inside himself. He froze when Cyrus came in, looking at him as if he’d been hit. “Who…”

“Klaus sent me,” Cyrus said, smiling. “My name’s Cyrus. Are you Stephan?”

Stephan Fyrhawk nodded, looking scared.

“Okay. Finish what you’re doing, I’ll wait outside.”

Cyrus stepped back outside, exhaling as he did. He stepped closer to Cassius, let his dragon wrap arms around him. “I love you,” he muttered. He still couldn’t quite believe that Cassius had come with him. Given up everything for him. 

“I love you too,” Cassius told him, holding him tightly. “I’ll keep you safe.” He was watching Klaus’s puppet warily. 

Klaus smiled a handsome smile at them. “I am glad to hear that. Cyrus had a tendency to put himself in undue danger.”

“I do not,” Cyrus muttered, embarrassed. 

“You mean you have a tendency to put him in undue danger,” Cassius accused. 

Klaus sighed. “Risks are unavoidable, Cassius. Cyrus, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve released my spell on Sawyer. Before I did, I watched to make sure that all your friends were safe, including Cassius’s siremates. The Sorcerer King will accept them into his service.”

Cyrus sighed in relief. “Good. Thank you.”

“To hear tell of it,” said Cassius, “being in the Sorcerer King’s service is not a safe position. How are you sure that they will not be harmed?”

“I am not,” Klaus admitted. “But Samson has been calming down a great deal lately. I am reasonably certain he will not harm them any more than you did. If he tries to, I will intervene.”

“I didn’t harm them at all,” Cassius growled.

“Then there is no problem.” 

He was saying that they were probably going to end up being sex objects for the king and his friends. Cyrus didn’t let himself think about that, and he didn’t say it aloud. It would just make Cassius angry, and it was better than dying. 

At that moment, Stephan came stumbling out of his tent, doing up his pants. “I’m sorry,” he panted. “I…” he paused, seeing Cassius and shrinking back.

“Stephan,” said Klaus. “I’m afraid I need to return Javier to Geoffrey. Cyrus and his friend will take care of you from now on.”

“But…”

Klaus smiled, held out a hand and opened a portal. This one led to somewhere even snowier than here, a narrow alley between two buildings. “You will be in good hands, I assure you. Cyrus has instructions on what to do.”

“Where…are we going?” Stephan asked. 

Cyrus approached the portal with Cassius. “Pelican Bay. Only for a week or so, and then north, to Merket.” He looked at Stephan and smiled. “First, though, we have a brief stop in Three Hills. We’re picking up someone named Neville?”

Stephan’s breath caught, and he looked from Cyrus to Klaus. “You…”

“I told you I would help you,” Klaus said, gesturing at the portal. “Now go, before some hapless person wanders into the portal by mistake.”

“Right. Um. Thank you so much, Klaus. You’ve done so much for me, and…”

“Of course, Stephan. I will see you very soon. Go.”

“Come on,” Cyrus said, stepping through the portal. Cassius went with him. Stephan hesitated for a second at the threshold, closing his eyes before stepping through. He took in a breath, and turned around, but the portal was already closed. 

“This way,” Cyrus said, waving them to follow him. “Sorry, I’ll let us stop and catch our breath once we’re in Pelican Bay, okay?”

Stephan nodded, catching up with him and Cassius with a wary glance at Cassius. “Is he…like Klaus?” he asked.

“A demon?” Cyrus asked. “No, he’s a dragon.”

“Oh.” Stephan blinked. “I always thought they were bigger.” His eyes then slid downwards, then he cleared his throat and looked away. Cassius smirked.

They cleared the alley and, once Cyrus was sure nobody was looking, skirted around the outer wall to a nice little house. The back gate was open, and Cyrus walked in. There was a southerner guarding the back door. “Halt,” he called, hand on his sword. 

The door he was guarding opened, and a northern boy a little older than Sean and Gino stepped out. He was skinny, short, dark-haired and wearing green. He gestured at the guard collapsed, then he smiled at them. “I told you I’d see you soon.”

Cyrus rolled his eyes. “You’re extremely dramatic.”

“So I’m told,” Klaus said. “And now, the reveal.” He stepped aside and another southerner, lean with slightly lighter colouring than Stephan, curly hair in need of a wash and a lot of bruises on his face, stepped outside. 

“Neville.” Stephan pushed past Cyrus, pulling the beat-up guy into a hug. 

“Stephan! How did you…” Neville hugged back like someone drowning. “I was so worried about you.”

“Me too,” Stephan whispered. They clearly meant so much to each other. Cyrus wondered if Klaus had reunited them because he needed both of them, or just to be nice. Behind them were two more southerners, sort of standing there awkwardly in the doorway.

“I regret to rush you all,” Klaus said, “but it will not be long before you are missed.” He waved, and another portal opened, to somewhere indoors, this time. “If you’d all traverse the portal.”

Stephan and Neville broke apart, and Stephan looked at Klaus. “Thank you,” he said, and they stepped through together. The other two came behind them, looking a bit confused. Cyrus didn’t know much about them, but he’d learn. 

Cyrus took Cassius’s hand, nodding at Klaus. “See you soon.”

“Always,” Klaus said, and Cyrus led Cassius through the portal to Pelican Bay. 

It closed behind them, and Cyrus sighed. “Okay.”

“Is he about to appear from around another corner?” Cassius asked, tail swishing back and forth, kicking up dust.

“No, I don’t think so.” There were some stairs leading up and Cyrus headed for those. “Come on, there’s stuff we have to do in Pelican Bay, but we can rest a bit first. Get to know each other.”

So they went upstairs. The house was empty but for them, but ready for them to stay in. They got settled in, ate some dinner, and found beds for the night. 

And that night, Cyrus slept in a bed, wrapped in Cassius’s arms to ward the cold, Cassius’s cock buried inside him. They had a lot of work to do tomorrow and in the future, here and in other places. There was no time to rest, not really. No time to dwell, especially on the past. 

But that night, warm and safe, Cyrus dreamed of his friends in Ech’kent. They would be okay. They had each other, and that was all they’d ever need. They’d never needed him. They’d be okay.

They’d be okay.


End file.
